Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

[Diarmuid]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

We don't know. We humans are not limited by our technology. We are limited by our understanding.

As you have said more free time may mean more unproductive people, doing nothing of value in some cases, but it is not the deterministic, we are limited by our understanding not technology as you noted, lest we forget most of mankinds increases in understanding and hence technological progress has come about because we have freed ourselves from labour, mundane tasks and concentrating on day to day survival, historically having more time to contemplate has led to increases in understanding, it is not a question of technology suppressing individual productivity, it is a question of what the individual can, is allowed and chooses to do with that free time which often determines productivity.


Self-actualization

“What a man can be, he must be”^[5]. This forms the basis of the perceived need for self-actualization.
This level of need pertains to what a person's full potential is and realizing that potential. Maslow describes this desire as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.^[6]. This is a broad definition of the need for self-actualization, but when applied to individuals the need is specific. For example one individual may have the strong desire to become an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in another it may be expressed in painting, pictures, or inventions

[Rajiv]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

How was this self actualization made possible? The term "Energy Slave" comes to mind.

The history of the term

How "Peak Oil" and "Peak Everything" will effect this is something to ponder about

[Jay]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

And then there is Door #3, the door which most opponents of the Obama health reform initiative have heretofore chosen: to pay zero and just show up at hospital emergency rooms when they get really sick or injured. (This is the leech off of the healthcare system option.)

Actually door number three usually involves people who aren't that sick who come to the Emergency Department for something ridiculous and sometimes take an ambulance because they don't feel like taking the bus or walking, plus they are seen earlier that way. I saw multiple people just like that today in fact. One woman came to the ED, saw it was busy, went home and then called the ambulance to be seen faster. That's a real morale builder.

[bcassill]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

I am not stero-typing Americans. Merely, I made a comment on some of those who attended tea-party revolts againsts the public option to buy into Medicare at age 55.

Don't I have a right to comment on those who were on TV, day after day, during 2009 in revolt against the Obama healthcare reform? Don't I have a right to observe and comment on these idiots?

And the poetic justice of it all is that these same idiots now will have to buy healthcare insurance from the most expensive providers possible: the for-profit private health insurance industry. These idiot protestors killed the public option ( including their own option ) to buy into Medicare at age 55.

Ah, but these idiots don't want to pay. They would rather leech and pay nothing, forever...... That is not a sterotype of what is going on; that is exactly what has been going on in America for decades. Even hospitals and doctors are fed-up with this abuse of emergency rooms.:rolleyes:

Let's tell the story the way it really is!:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Agreed. There will always be those looking for a free ride. On the other hand, we have a health care system top heavy with medical specialists, fraud, waste, and insurance coverage for things like homeopathic therapy and Viagra prescriptions (these are fine, just don't ask me to pay for it on somebody else's behalf). At the same time, we pay far more for needed medications than any other nation in the industrialized world, and programs like the Medicare Prescription Drug program are nothing more than glorified subsidies to large Pharma. Meanwhile, 50MM are without insurance and can't even get basic care.

But you are essentially correct. It is much easier to rile up the uninformed masses to maintain the status quo because there is just too much money left to be made by the entrenched interests. ;)

[flintlock]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

It's my personal opinion all this " lack of something meaningful to do" has led to a lot of the mental and physical illness we have in our society. I work with the general public a lot in the course of my business. Americans are neurotic as hell. (With the top of the heap being bored rich housewives. )

[Shakespear]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Frankly, besides the "Materialism" Serge mentions, I can't see quite what we have gained from it all, because to supposedly "own" lots of material things, yet "owe" many times their value doesn't strike me as a higher standard of living.

I think you hit it on the nail my friend. Having seen a Life Mag. photos of people being evicted from their homes the thought struck me how much "stuff" they had. Stuff that is really worth very little as can be seen at a garage sale.

I bet a Quaker family has more valuable "stuff" in their homes than an average US home. Sad :-(

[labasta]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Free Trade is an academic construct...i.e. it doesn't exist. Whether it's the Chinese, Indians, or the Japanese maintaining a peg to the dollar to keep their goods artificially cheap (i.e. currency manipulation) so that they can keep exporting to the largest economy on Earth or the large farm subsidies that the U.S. government provides to large agri-business conglomerates so that we can cheaply export agricultural product or the Europeans who ply their state owned companies with subsidies to make them profitable, nobody is playing honest. The only way the Chinese and other net exporters have managed to keep their currencies from appreciating is from buying U.S. government debt, which the politicians are only more than happy to give them since it means they can keep on spending without raising taxes. Meanwhile, our "open" trade policies mean that jobs are outsourced by the millions as factories and high value technical skills in engineering and IT are farmed out to locations in China, India, and Eastern Europe. This game results in large temporary payouts for wealthy shareholders, executive bonuses, and Wall Street interests all the while impoverishing the very middle class market these businesses try to sell into.

I like to think of globalization like the Wal-Mart effect. Many years ago when Wal-Mart was in growth mode, they would come into a small town and open a large store. In a relatively short time, what was once a vibrant community with many privately owned stores and businesses was suddenly a ghost town with a single large retailer. Everyone who had worked at or owned one of those businesses found themselves working for the retailing giant with the smiley face making minimum wage. Yes, they got cheaper goods, but they also got a substantial pay cut and reduced living standard in the process. The best trade example along these line is U.S. agricultural exports to third world countries. The main reason many of these countries are net importers of food is because local farmers cannot compete against the U.S. taxpayer subsidized agricultural products that are sold to them. The only thing they have to sell in return (usually) are natural resources which are usually cheaply procured via some well placed bribes to corrupt officials or through coercion via the IMF (please look up "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" to learn more how the IMF is used to further U.S. business interests).

Anyhow, the gist here is that the game is rigged against the little guy. Whether you are a worker or a business owner, someone well connected has the inside track against you unless you happen to be lucky enough to get in on the front end of an emerging technology. It doesn't matter where you live or if you are conservative or liberal. You are a victim. It is only now when the global economy implodes that the whole corrupt system of larceny and malfeasance is exposed for what it is: a means of transferring wealth from the mass of middle class and more affluent households to a select few corporate and financial entities.

The promised benefits of globalization are a lie every bit as much as the promise of ever increasing asset prices. It has only helped to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Spot on.

My concern is the continuation of this process. I'm not old enough to remember life for the average Joe in the 1970s in the US. Imagining how life has changed since then and taking the assumption of a continuation of this feudalisation, I wonder what life will look like say in 2070s, 100 years on.

Probably not very pretty as far as a sense of freedom and soulful choice (I can't think of the word) is concerned.

It may be youthful nostalgia but I can distinctly remember things being freer, more personally responsible, less state intrusion even just going back to the 80s. It may just be me though.

[labasta]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

One of the essential arguments for all progressive ideologies is that increased efficiency and technology are good things. The only difference between communism and capitalism are those which you elucidate.

If we are to believe progressives however, then what are we to do when technological advancement allows ALL humans to be free of work?

To an extent, that is almost what we have today. Another poster made the simple statement that all we really need is food, clothing, and shelter. With the exception of non-industrial people engaged in subsistence living, I'm sure the percentage of the remainder that participates in the global economy that is involved with these essential aspects of life is fewer than 5% of the population. What does the other 95% do?

This is something of a science fiction question, but thanks to the FIRE economy - it's almost true in the US. We have millions upon millions of people who serve no economically productive purpose, and consequently live completely empty lives devoid of any meaning or purpose.

Great insights on this thread.

This ties in to peoples cries from the soul so to speak. Community living, making decisions which influence yourself and your community etc. is the opposite of how the system and society has been managed in the West probably since the industrial revolution. Machines are supposed to serve us, not make us a part of the machine.

When I watched a bit of the tv programme "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" this year, the contestants really enjoyed their time in there with one saying he's never been happier. I could see it as a kind of tribal living. Maybe it's built into our DNA to live in smallish groups as a tribe. I really understand the appeal. We live the exact opposite life these days in exchange for technology given to us by industry. We can travel far, speak to each other across the world etc. but we are all so separated in our division of labour and way of living. Can we blend the two together so we can get the positives out of both without inheriting any negatives.

I'd like tribal living with near separation from the industrial/technological base where the latter serves the former. Is this possible?

Just a thought.

If every one of us only had to work half a day a week to keep the technological base going and spend the rest living as a tribe in fun and creativity or whatever gets you up in the morning, money as an entity would probably have to be dissolved.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

Maybe it's built into our DNA to live in smallish groups as a tribe. I really understand the appeal.

Neuroscience gives us Dunbar's number, which correlates the size of the neocortex to the size of the social group. Such scientific work says that a human can maintain stable meaningful social relationships with about 150 people, max. It's a number that pops up in a surprising number of traditional group sizes -a company of soldiers, a typical one-pastor congregation, a neolithic village. The W.L Gore company (Goretex) has a policy that no single building will have more than 150 people.

[flintlock]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

It may be youthful nostalgia but I can distinctly remember things being freer, more personally responsible, less state intrusion even just going back to the 80s. It may just be me though.

No, that's pretty much the way the 70s were also. Only with Bell bottoms.

We may have more crap and gadgets now, but back then you could go to work, earn a paycheck, and not feel like every penny of it was spoken for before you even earned it. People lived within their means. Stuff cost what you'd expect it to cost. Fancy stuff was more expensive. Basic necessities were relatively cheap. Today things are turned upside down. Huge TV's sell for only a few days pay, while a few days in the hospital can cost six months wages. A plumber costs $120 hour. In the 70s, if you wanted to finish out a room in the basement for Grandma you paid a local contractor a few hundred bucks to throw up some drywall. Now the permits alone would cost you that. And that is IF they allow you to do it. Definitely a different "vibe" between then and now.

[iyamwutiam]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

No, that's pretty much the way the 70s were also. Only with Bell bottoms.

We may have more crap and gadgets now, but back then you could go to work, earn a paycheck, and not feel like every penny of it was spoken for before you even earned it. People lived within their means. Stuff cost what you'd expect it to cost. Fancy stuff was more expensive. Basic necessities were relatively cheap. Today things are turned upside down. Huge TV's sell for only a few days pay, while a few days in the hospital can cost six months wages. A plumber costs $120 hour. In the 70s, if you wanted to finish out a room in the basement for Grandma you paid a local contractor a few hundred bucks to throw up some drywall. Now the permits alone would cost you that. And that is IF they allow you to do it. Definitely a different "vibe" between then and now.

I would agree - I personally felt a lot more freedom. But I think that is because we were riding the backlash of vietnam and civil liberties movements. Now - the technology has caught up to the vision of big brother. Huge databases which were being worked on since the 50s are now at a point that FICO + SS# + surveillance (cellphone/phone/cc records) equate the to power of being able to intimidate and cause people to be rather hopeless regarding fighting the system or even questioning the system.

I mean how come there is ever a thread on how Corrections Corporation even exiasts or that if you had half-a brain- and bought it 10 years ago -you would have a lot of leisure time to write posts. It was close to $1.25 in 2000 and is 80 percent institutionally owned. Who do you thik those institutions are!?!! BTW - (hint) -thinking your country is not special but rather devious -is VERY profitable.

[marvenger]

Re: Pat Buchanan: A Decade of Self Delusion (We Did It To Ourselves)

something approaching or with a significant amount of 'fair trade' intent would be a step in the right direction. But who is going to finance you and who is going to buy your product if you're a capitalist with fair trade slant. So fair trade hasn't taken off and free trade has never existed because power has never been evenly distributed and you don't get to be the hammer by being fair or free. hmmmm.....maybe its just america's turn to be the nail.