The Difference Between a Person and Everyone.
When talking about the economy, political reform or money, conflating the two causes serious problems.
The problem that most people have with economics and statistics has its roots in the difference between a person and everyone.
In our fractional reserve lending world,
* A person can pay off their loans.
* Everyone can't pay off their loans.
There doesn't exist enough money. When money is created by debt, only the principal is created. The interest payments have to come from someplace else. And that place is another loan. Its like paying off a credit card with another credit card. The debt never goes down, and actually can never go down. There isn't enough money in creation.
In our politicized and taxed world.
* A person can make more money
* Everyone cannot.
When a minimum wage is imposed, everyone makes less money.
This comes about because of taxes on the system. When everyone's wages is increased, all the prices of goods increases in the same proportion. However, the taxes also go up, so in the end, everyone is just (and only) paying more taxes.
In our politicized world
* A group of people can get a benefit from taxes being distributed to them
* Everyone cannot.
Those taxes had to come from someplace, and that someplace is the tax payers. No matter how the govern-cement gets the money, it always comes from the people, since the govern-cement has never produced anything (except heartbreak, destruction and red tape) So, tax the people and then spend those taxes on all the people, leaves the society with the same amount of money (minus administrative costs of over 50%)
In our economic world
* A person can produce more.
* Everyone can produce more.
The notion that you are taking something from other people whenever you get something is wrong.
If you eat a meal, you are not depriving someone else on the planet a meal. There is enough food for everyone.
Where there is lack, it is because not enough have been built, or scarcity because of local conditions. Everyone in The US has a toaster if they want one. There have been enough built, that if you really wanted a toaster, you could knock on three doors, and someone would have given you a toaster. But, there are places that don't have any toasters, or electricity for that matter. You having, or not having a toaster, does not keep them from having a toaster.
In the world of statistics
* A person can get lucky, or be a statistical anomoly.
* Everyone is defined by the statistic.
Wishful thinkers shout, "Not all people are like that!"
However, when you are working with people, than statistics rule. Take a large enough group of people and their average IQ is 100. Take a large enough group of american men and their average height is 5'-9". And so it is with all group statistics, without exception.
The people who dream of utopias often run into the problem of ignoring reality.
The Venus Project believes that they can program a computer to correctly dole out resources to everyone on the planet. Never realizing that each person has different needs and wants that can't easily be put into a computer. Yes, the average amount of resources required can be computed, but not the specific. This is a problem of confusing everyone with a person.
Then you have the opposite, where a person designs their perfect world, not realizing that all people think differently and that one person's idea of heaven, is another's description of hell. Applying the personal to everyone doesn't work.
It is a hard thing looking at the entire system. People base their world views on their personal experiences. What else do they have? However, the rules drastically change when you go from a single person to everyone.
You don't post often but perhaps you ought to. This was well written, presented, and thought out.
I don't agree with it all though. I still think a utopia is doable. But I think people are going about it the wrong way. If you want to change human nature so that we can arrive at a point where we all look upon one another as being on the same team - being family - as opposed to someone we are in competition with for success and survival. Then you have to start with the languages we are speaking, because they are perpetuating both the adversarial mindset and also the distancing ourselves from our responsibility that makes it so easy for us to play society's game where the losers end up on the streets or dead.
With the right language, one that is shaped around unity and not self-preservation but preservation of the species, then we would build a utopia without even having to plan it. It would just come naturally.
That;s what I believe anyway.
I agree with your statement... however, i do not feel they will call it utopia. So, i also agree with my statements.
Changing from a lack mindset to an abundance mindset
Changing from an US vs Them to a live and let live mindset
Changing from letting everyone walk all over you to having actual, real boundaries (including property ownership, for you, neighbor, community, city...)
As we become more compassionate and less quick to anger, we will get to peace on earth, and probably much more.
But, i don't think the future me will call it utopia, probably something more like, duh, this is just the proper way to love your neighbor.
Its irrelevant what you call it and I have to contest these points:
1, it's irrelevant that there's not enough money to pay the interest on the loans, because value is what one person or a whole group of people produce, and if the bankers want to collect the fraudulently designed loans they are going to be walking around empty handed because nobody had a contract with them, least a lawful contract and so the point of paying off fraudulent loans is moot.
2, If the currency is tied to a resource that never grows in supply then it's all a matter of accrued value, as was exemplified by the monetary system under which the colonists prospered unprecedentedly, or Colonial Scrip which was based on land as the resource backing the currency and as the land grew in price so did the currency grow in value. So in turn when Benjamin Franklin was befuddled by the dismal poverty in England he said to the buffoons in Parliament that even if they (colonists) had poor houses there wouldn't be anyone to put in there, because prosperity was EVERYWHERE.
3, The Alaskan Petroleum Fund that pays all the people living in Alaska a dividend and has been doing that for over 30 years demonstrates without a problem that money doesn't come from taxpayers and that indeed EVERYONE benefits. I don't need to present the fact that many countries have free healthcare, and everyone benefits as well, but I can tell you that taxes on the rich (100k or more a year) had been as high as 93% and the periods of such high taxes correlate with economic boom (not simply growth) and tax cuts on the 1%'ers corresponded with bust cycles. It might be a coincidence, yet this is the horse's mouth
4, That's a non issue as clearly one GeoThermal Plant can produce till the sun swallows the earth, and production is the realm of machines not people as there is NO INDIVIDUAL that could compete even marginally with a machine, and the only issue is that there's 50k miles of oceanic rifts that could satisfy everyone's greed x10 which produce numerous resources, both ferrous and non ferrous and there's no end to them yet we are pushing rubber on asphalt to pollute with petroleum emissions and burning coal to make coffee and light our homes instead of the alternative.
The dream of utopia is realized only when you can face the reality of the above stated facts, all else is what you think people think when they "dream" of utopia. Case and point, it's not an issue of "enough" but of interfacing with a database that's the problem from your point of view, because we can "dole" out resources which don't say scarce anywhere in your problematic premise, but we cannot assess each others needs, as if wants and needs are interchangeable in the context of necessity. They aren't, and confusing the two is equivalent to arguing that we cannot assess people's individual needs.
Everyone needs certain things and if they claim otherwise who's going to think twice to put their stake on that person's stuff they don't want. The idea that everyone thinks different is moot here and now: even animals understand what Theft is, and even animals show empathy, yet "everyone" thinks differently, you should have told Edward Bernays that, he only is the father of consumerism and his application of "everyone thinks different" ain't anywhere, in fact it's quite the opposite and the demonstrated Saga of that sagacious observation is all around you.
If only the redundancy proof of everyone thinking differently was anywhere in the real world and not only in some hypothetical that cannot be manifest in an infinity of universal permutations, we would have utopia already, but it's quite the opposite, maybe one in a million Thinks Differently (good one apple, was that a jab at M$oft for stealing your shit?).
In conclusion, yeah statistics equalizes the individuals but the individual efforts accrue in groups and the potential is for exponentially more, a nuclear fission.
This is the most relevant and important thing on the list.
We only take out mortgages because we feel that it is normal.
If we knew that mortgages are a death spiral, that with just one mortgage, that ALL the houses will be foreclosed upon (because that is the mathematical end) would we ever sign a mortgage?
The answer is, probably, because that is the system, and there are no other alternatives.
Fractional reserve lending destroys everything.
All the other points stem from the FED being in existence.
You have heard of the benefits compound interest, well, we are living in compounding destruction. Nothing can get better until that is stopped.
I will give you that but on the caveat that it's not fractional reserve banking that's doing it but simply because the money is created by loans to the government for which the government is charged interest, because fractional reserve banking has been around for 5 centuries and going on 6, and what ills us isn't that, but the inflation built into the money supply, and you're confusing that with predatory lending and outright fraud as the signatory is the creditor, actually the Primary Creditor. Mortgages and the whole economy is built on the credit that is ours, and backed by us, but because our fiduciary agents had no interest in fulfilling their responsibility to us and we've effectively allowed uncle Jimbo with the bad gambling problem to be in charge of or finances, and eventually, like Jimbo knew the moment he had to take a loan to pay a loan, this will come full circle, the bankers think though that their bunkers staffed by pleabs will be safe for when they pull the plug and nobody is gonna be a fool and buy back the gold confiscated constantly for 80 years now from the people, so they have about one shot at starving off the impending credit and mortgage bubble because the people are ready with the pitchforks, except now we have fully automatic integrally silenced air rifles and the internet, not just pitchforks. The debt isn't real because it's been a fraudulent business of double booking and because the debt is instantly offset and canceled by the credit backing it, which is growing at a rate far greater than inflation and that's if the fed thinks anyone is actually gonna pay them, yet the fraud is that they get paid by taxes, as the Grace Report outlined, 100% of income taxes goes directly to pay the interest on the national debt. Wrap your head around that and keep in mind that debt if it can't get paid is simply forgiven, I should know, I have someone that owed me about 20k, and can I in good conscience demand any of that once I understand the situation is basically my fault, akin to trusting uncle Jimbo, and that I can't blame the other person for not keeping up with promises, which comes right back to contracts which are fraudulent on the basis that nobody can predict the future, so exactly how can you contract without claiming you're a prophet?
A person can do the right thing.
Not all people will do the right thing.
If find it less frustrating when I focus upon the things I can directly control. Knowing that the mass that is humanity is bound to screw this whole thing up won't stop me from producing all I can in order to buy some freedom.
Such a good look and simplification or the concepts of individuality in the economic/political systems!
Well done and thought provoking once again.
It is indeed a pain to watch people do things you know is going to come back to bite them.
But, that's life. And you have to let people try. (unless their trying will hurt you.)
Keep working on yourself is the only way.
Thanks much.
Very well said, and it's one of the major issues I have with the Venus Project and other like-minded, 60,000 ft top-down ideas for bring about a new and better world. I've written on this subject before and spent considerable time debating the subject, so it's nice to have a plain, simple-to-understand breakdown of this issue in particular. Keep up the good work. :)
Thank you much.
What of the democratic principle that a people will on the whole make a better decision collectively than individually? What of the related IQ principle that on average people taken collectively score better than on an individual basis?
On the other hand there is equally valid capitalist principle that individuals best know how to care for themselves.
Both can be true because the first looks to the higher level of analysis at which extrapolation from the individual does not work, only the law of averages does, and meanwhile at the individual level deduction from generalization does not work, only case by case review does.
There's no such principles, it's actually the opposite, a group of people are easy to manipulate, look at the Stanford Prison Experiment, and as for a group of people who score better on average than individuals, I don't need to ask what's average, because a group of people by principle is only as strong or smart or intelligent as the weakest links, that's the principle which also dictates that a group can only pander to the lowest common denominator, because anything else breaks the integrity of the group simply because of the difference in abilities will leave the majority out if the most able are the only ones that factor in it, and then you have another lowest common denominator.
Yes but no. Group think applies when people do not make decisions individually but as a mob. I'm not talking of that. The principles I mention are sound.
I'm curious to learn more about the democratic principle of groups making better decisions than individuals, please share some of that knowledge, I can get behind the idea that as a group people can bounce ideas back and forth and hone those ideas, granted there is enough difference between the way people think and they aren't simply "finishing each others sentences" in a flurry of echochamber noise.
The most valuable wisdom my father taught me he encapsulated in the dictum: "You are doing at least one thing rightly when you think what no one else thinks." I see quite a bit problematic with the idea but what I take from it is that it is an unmitigated good to think independently. That is the key to the democratic principle, and it is not only good but also useful.
In the first place, people must be self-sovereign in making up each of their minds. Ideally we'd all be 'free thinkers' if possible. Alas, I don't know anybody personally whom I'd confidently call a true and complete 'free thinker'; we are as you mentioned easily manipulable. But whilst ideas can be implanted into people's minds, people can yet make decisions of their own accord; and as long as they participate in this independence of thought, when they collaborate they may do so democratically.
Now this is useful in obtaining results for the whole society superior to those of the majority of individuals, because firstly, as you say, a discussion by such people is far more fruitful; secondly, as we expect, independently formed opinions tend to be more intelligent than if not formed independently; and thirdly, statistically the average outcome of independent opinions proves superior to the outcome of the random selection of any single opinion.
The problem isn't that people don't make the choices but the fact that they don't know their choices, and this goes directly with the premises that groups are easily manipulated like the prison guards and like the "teachers " in the Milgram experiments because they don't see the full range of choices, and it actually boils down to being a conscientious objector which comes from recognizing the choice and the obligation we have to one another. It goes into the fact that it was a singular person that stopped the Vietnam Conflict, not the numerous enlisted that were killed in prison or the ones that fragged the officers tents, or the mass of people that rallied behind them, but the officer, who like the documentary said "Sir, no, sir".
In an idyllic scenario individual thinkers in a group would indeed form a formidable idea, but you're forgetting what a rarity it is to have two of such people in ANY group, let alone a whole group who on average is an individual thinker, like I remarked above to @builderofcastles, it would be very wonderful if we could truly say that everyone thinks differently, as the redundancy proof of that would have ushered in a utopia that we might not be capable of even imagining, because in such a setting the most valuable things would be the ideas that would develop.
I don't think you're exactly right, because independence of mind causes a person to seek out his own answers and thus illuminate the range of possible choices. He will not have perfect knowledge of his choices for no mortal can, but he will not be confined to only received ideas. He will also have the options he discovers, and from the selection he will make his choice.
Secondly, having an infinite diversity of ideas is a poor substitute for being able to independently think up new ideas. This was the main disagreement I had with the saying. My father's natural sciences perspective evidently is reflected in his view of humanities.
Thirdly, independent thought is not necessarily a rarity. It can be cultivated and learned, though it definitely is under considerable threat today especially. I'm pretty sure you, @builderofcastles and I think independently.
'Free thinking' is, yes, a rarity - and I actually believe it ought to be; but 'free thinking' as I understand it means something else beyond independent thinking. 'Free thinking' would involve also freedom from external influence, whereas independent thinking just sovereignty of mind, i.e. freedom from manipulation.
Who can believably claim to be totally uninfluenced? Only a god, I suppose. And who would wish to never be influenced by his loved ones? We have to make do with protecting ourselves against manipulation. That at least is completely within our power.
The full range of choices isn't about an unlimited range of choices because at most we have a handful of choices to make in any situation but because we aren't aware of one or two choices we've been limited severely by the lack of those choices.
Independent thinking and free thinking means the same thing, independent thinking could be construed to mean freedom from outside influences as much as free thinking can and obviously that's an extreme, what we're talking about is a critical rationalist, and freedom from external manipulation on our thinking would be an ideal that remains in the same realm as freedom from influence, because manipulation and influence is simply a matter of intent, one is done consciously while the other is done without conscious intent and to think we can be free from manipulation is to say we can spot it, but to spot it requires that the manipulator gives themselves away, yet the more skilful the manipulator the less of a chance we could have to spot it, so saying that it's in our power to discern manipulation is only wishful thinking, we can dupe ourselves in thinking we're protected but actually being protected is a matter of how much time and effort the manipulator puts into the scheme.
( By the way I know Dr. Zimbardo personally. I first made his acquaintance at an Oakland cocktail party where I learned and said to his face what I'll now assure you: he's a terrible social scientist. Then again, he's not much different in that regard than the majority of social scientists who neither know how to set up scientific experiments nor how to interpret the statistical results; except that he is certainly a wicked little prick. )
Well, i have disproven all of those tests personally. I knew more about survival and rebuilding the infrastructure than all the other people in my group combined. And so, my personal score was always higher than the group's.
The idea goes as follows, a group of people usually have a lot of knowledge collectively, and so, given some situation, there is probably someone who knows what to do. A bunch of generalists.
However, a specialist, in that field, will always have a better understanding than a group of generalists.
A person who has survived off the land is 10x more knowledgeable than a whole group of people who have maybe car camped once a year. (if the question is surviving and getting back to civilization.)
A person with a 150 IQ will score higher on an IQ test solo than a dozen people with an IQ of 100 together.
One hydraulics specialist will be able to fix a well pump, whereas a group of people may make things worse, or better. Most people don't even know what a well pump looks like. Most people don't know the first thing about electricity and wiring.
So, it really depends. Do you have a specialist among your group in the area of expertise that you need? If not, then group discussion / pooling information is your next best choice.
You are right in what you say. But you miss my point which I expressed poorly. What I mean, to take your example, is that in a group averaging 100 IQ points per member and with an outlier high score of 150, the likelihood of randomly selecting an individual from the group with a score lower than the average of 100 is greater than the average, because of the skew at the tail end(s) of the distribution. Therefore, it is preferable if you want to know the better answer to test the group generally than to randomly pick members to test. Of course if you know the individual scores then you would choose the person with the highest score.
Given any real group, the members generally know who is good at what.
An IQ test? Well stacy is the straight A student
Get the car out of the ditch and get it running? Bob's your man. Some say he was born with a wrench in his hand.
Survive off the land? Brian has been backpacking more than all of us combined.
So, if that is not the answer to your question, than you are asking a statistics question.
What is the likelihood of randomly selecting the best person for the job?
The thing is, with the specialist, that there is no comparison.
The dozen people with IQs of 100 will never score as high as the one person with 150 IQ.
The dozen people may get all the easy questions correct by pooling their knowledge, but they can't answer any of the medium or hard questions.
You... started putting people on a bell curve, when i said 12 people of 100 IQ and one of 150 IQ. There is no lower IQ people in this example to pull from.
How many scientists are equal to one Einstein?
12 people average 100 points, one of the 12 having 150 points.
This is a statistics question.
However, you were speaking of the failure of modeling whole systems based on individuals (e.g. macroeconomics with rational actors). I think you are totally right when talking about moving up from individuals to higher orders of organization.
I am pointing out how your logic of your argument stands until it doesn't, for it works both ways: that accounting for specifics perfects systems and generalization captures the whole system. It's that the two approaches to organization are valid and invalid in opposite contexts and therefore can be complementary.
As the adage goes hard cases make bad law. True, bad law also makes hard cases, but when speaking of society, you must consider the matter first at a systems level, then the details. That is why leeway is allowed for mercy whilst the law can remain inviolable.
Yep, that is the trouble with discussing groups.
Mobs don't start or end because of logic.
And what is missing in our system, what i wish feminism would actually fight for, is the feminine balance of the masculine system. Or, in other words, emotions need to be codified into law. But, darned if i know how that is going to come about.
For any system to work, you need the hard and the soft.
I’m glad Claybon shared this post. It made me wonder what would happen if instead of increasing pay, taxes, and prices we decreased. With the mind set that we earn less and will spend less. Until everyone does pay off their debt. What then?
Well, this is what was happening before the FED was illegally placed over america.
Piece 1: Mortgage is a french word meaning death note. Or you will pay until you die.
The mortgages where never designed to be repaid. All of the houses have been paid for four or five times over. If we stopped using fractional reserve lending banks, then all the loans get paid off.
Piece 2: As innovations in manufacturing happen, then the price of goods drops. It is only because inflation has been so high (about 12% per year) that the price of goods hasn't gone down.
Piece 3: Fractional reserve lending requires more money to be borrowed into existence than ALL of the interest and principal paid that year, or the system implodes. Thus, every year the national debt goes up. (it cannot be paid off)
So, we implement a real money that cannot just be printed willy-nilly. Such as crypto-currencies. And when good cryptos are all that anyone uses, than you have just what you described.
True, but then you have more and more coins entering the system and existing coins being spilt into two. I just wonder if our lack of self discipline and lack of debt free mindset will change our debt situation regardless of our currency choice.
Splitting in two actually makes more people rich. It is a weird phenomena.
Fractional reserve lending makes all the people poor while making the bankers rich.
And really, if you look at the inflation rate before the FED in america, all the prices were going down and all the houses were paid off.
Yes, there are better ways. And humanity will find them. But first, a real money that we can know and trust.
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Relevant and nuanced. Brava!