[infestedterran]

malachi151: [Yes, he did this. You can't exactly test economics in lab though eh?...]

Your view on how science is confined to the laboratory isnt exactly accurate either now is it.

malachi151: [...Especially before computers.]

Exactly my point. These are the limitations that Marx had. He could never have imagined the complex technologies that would inevitably develop and therefore could not even include them in his argument.

malachi151: [He did form hypothesies and then based on events which took place, he revised his views.]

Yes but his conclusions were based on the time in which he lived. If he knew how technology would develop to the point were a factory could be run automaticaly by a computer without workers I doubt he would have placed such great faith on his proletariat. He would have placed his faith on those who have the capability to operate such complicated machinery, the scientist and engineers. But anyone can become a scientist or an engineer in a Technocracy because education would be free, therefore all arguments about an elitest educated class controlling everthing is absurd.

malachi151: [Impossible, you can't determine truth without philosophy. Empericism is a product of philosophy.]

I know, I never said you could determine truth without philosophy. I said that in a Technocracy the government would be divided in two sides or two houses of legislature. One Technocratic deciding all matters dealing with how to make all technology as efficient as possible so we can get the most out of it. The other part would be the Democratic side or house, deciding all matters dealing with philosophy, or things that are physically impossible to determine with the scientific method, like abortion or whether or not the death penalty is morally right and should or should it not be used.

malachi151: [Materially impacted society, yes. However, the atheistic scientics at Bell Labs, or ADM, or IBM are not out trying to help people understand the truth, they are instead using the disparity fo understanding to their advantage to leverage power. "Knowedge is power" should more appropriately read "exclusive knowledge is power"]

I seem to be repeating myself, but like Ive said before, science is not the search for Truth, science is the search for Facts. Also, science is not a private enterprise as I believe you are implying. When the U.S. successfully developed the hydrogen bomb in the 50's the U.S. believed it could keep it secret so plans wouldnt leak out and reach the Soviets like they did with the atomic bomb in the 40's. But unlike the ordinary uranium and plutonium based atomic bomb the U.S.S.R. built its own Hydrogen bomb without stolen secrets from the U.S. How is this possible? Becuase these are not secrets and can never be secrets, this is physics and science. The Soviets never needed Americans to build their bomb, they needed mathematics. Also, knowledge is not exclusive if it is available to all for free, like it would be in a Technocracy.

malachi151: [Marx, understanding the material and evolutionary basis of the world, sought to help all mankind by explaining reality to the world and showing the oppressed to way out of exploitation based on a scientific understanding of reality.]

No, Marx sought to "help" the "proletariat" identify its clear enemy, the "bourgeoisie", and how it is "inevitable" for them to overthrow the "bourgeoisie" by any means necessary. Marx never argued Egalitarianism, he argued about the superiority of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. He divided society in classes, he never sought to help "all" mankind.

I Infestedterran said: The industrial revolution (technology) forced machinery upon us.

malachi151 responded: [No, people did, and the use of machines is highly beneficial.

You misunderstood. By industrial revolution is meant technology, and technology is not introduced to us by anyone other than people ok. Also what are you arguing about machines being beneficial? Technocrats (like myself) believe machines are infinitely beneficial.

malachi151: [Labor wil never end unless we are all brains sitting in jars on a shelf living in a virtual reality, and then there will be mental labor. The point is to ensure that we all benefit from the use of machines in appropriate ways. Even in the current exploitive state of society we are all still better off with machines.]

By labor is meant physical tedious labor. Machines have been displacing men in the work place since their introduction in an increasing rate, these are statistics. Ofcourse we are better off with machines! I dont undestand why you state this. But even if we have the technology for machines to replace men indefinitely in factories, we cannot benefit from this scientific acheivement in our current price system.

malachi151: [My point was that technology will only solve the problems of those who control it.]

No, technology solves problems for ALL who use it. We all use technology for everything. No one "controls" technology, what Technocracy proposes is that we take full advantage of technology and machines so eventually no one must sweat and toil over a job a machine could do many times more efficiently. The end of this type of labor would not be the end of life for us, it would rid us of physical tedious labor so we can consintrate on our actual lives.

malachi151: [Thus technology alone is no solution, its only a solution depending on how it is used, how it is used depends on who controls it.]

Like I said before, the same can be said of this so called "proletariat". But this is why technology will be in the hands of the technocratic part of the state, if all education is equal anyone could join this technocratic part, besides the Technocratic part of the state would only decide how to make technology more efficient, the Democratic would decide how it is actually used.

By the way, if you read about Technocracy this would save me much time so I wouldnt have to type up all this. In other words much of what I said you would already know. Just as I have read Marx's work without bias, you should do the same for Technocracy's work. Since my semester in college started already I cant spend so much time on this anymore. So please just do us both a favor and just read the literature. How can anyone learn without reading?

[infestedterran]

Infestedterran. I've read your website link. My first question qould be did you write it because if you did it cannot be reffered to as an impartial source in this debate. Secondly there seem to be a few disagreements in the page. Mainly this:
"Removal of methods of scarcity such as money, debt, value, and interest.
Replacement of these methods with an empirical accounting of all physical resources, products, and services (called Energy Accounting)."
And the fact that three lines down it says there will be:
"Higher standard of living for ALL citizens in terms of income, housing, health care, education, and leisure."
Now how can we have a higher income when we have removed money from the system. You seem to be talking about going backwards culturally. The reason money was invented was because it was efficient. Would you really prefer to carry a sack of coal down to the shops.
Also that line about "rich natural resources." Where on earth did that idea come from. Didn't you ever learn in school that if we carry on using oil at the present rate will should run out by about 2080. Although if you want a source heres one that predicts we will run our by about 2040:
http://www.purposeinlife.org/series2/mi ... n_out.html

This "final basic conclusion" is ridiculous.
"The final basic conclusion is that a new distributive system must be instituted that is designed to satisfy the special needs of an environment of technological adequacy, and that this system must not in any way be associated with the extent of an individual's functional contribution to society. "
People only work hard because at the moment the harder they work the more they get. If you detach the distribution system from how much people contribute then everyone will stop working because they know they will get everything anyway.

You show me the maths that proves this theory and i will find the mistakes. In almost every big theory huge assumtions are made and unless these can be justified the maths is flawed (its flawed anyway if assumptions are made but if they can be justified there is a greater chance that its all correct)

Also as i said earlier. Read up on fractals and natural disasters. Especially the mayan civilisation. If there ever was a technocratic civilisation it would almost certainly implode into civil war once it reached a certain level of efficiency.

oh. before i go. your website is wrong about the natural scarcity. Any product could be produced in greater quantities its just that the producers want to make money and by producing a limited amount by only having a low number of factories they can keep prices up. It is in fact illegal to produce below capacity just to keep prices up so companies just dont buy too many factories to purposefully produce below demand and create scarcity.

No this is not my website. All information is taken from Technocracy. I am actually a recent new member to this organization. Sorry but because of college, work and lack of time I cant answer you myself right at this moment. If you keep reading everything will become clear, just be patient as with everything. Go here for a quick history on Technocracy's origins.

http://www.technocracyinc.org/MainIndex.htm

If you wait a couple days ill get to you later, sorry for now.

[CyberDragon]

Ok i've had a look at the "basic" maths (you really underestimate me). There appears to me a problem with it already. Anyone other than Kolzene reading this should have a look at this website first http://www.technocracyinc.org/pamphlets ... ution.html
Now the first equations we see are e=mq and e=nl. No problem here and we can as a result say nl=mq. So q=(nl)/m. Now later on we get thrown C=(we)/p and C for some reason must equal q. There fore we can say (nl)/m=(we)/p but e=nl so we have (nl)/m=(wnl)/p times both sides by m and divide by nl and we get (wm)/p=1 ahh numbers at last. However if we look at this we are saying the amount a person is payed for each unit they produce divided by the average price of a unit is 1. Now in any industry this would cause the industry to lose money. It would only work if the industry did not have to pay taxes or bills of any sort and as we know this is illogical. Where does money for transporting the goods come from. Sorry to people who dont know what the letters are but its all explained on the website. If your interested in the fractals stuff i'll try to remember to scan the article and e-mail it to you over then next week kolzene.

[CyberDragon]

Ummmmm.
Kolzene:"Ok, yes, this is a problem. You're right. However, it's not exactly a problem with the article since the whole point that Hubbert was trying to make was that this was the problem with our economic system! If you read a little more closely, you'll see that this all hinges on one assumption,"

At the moment, production in most industries does equal consumption. That is why the 1 is a problem. Not the c=q. In todays market the 1 is in fact about a 0.7 or 0.8. An example is the computer industry. They make computers to order. NOT make the computers then try to sell them as they already know this would lose them money.

Ok onto the fractals stuff. Your info on the spaniards happened after the collapse of the mayan civilisation. The spaniards found primitive tribes and lots of abandoned ruins. I'll start at where the fractal idea came from. Forest fires are known to follow patterns called self-organised criticality. This system also governs things such as earthquakes, solar flares and the muscle contractions of a mother giving birth.
The main characteristic of these systems is an increase in instability until the whole system becomes so unstable that it resets itself. The classic example is a pile of sand. If you add more sand one grain at a time the gradient of the pile increases. There may be many small avalanches which slightly decrease the gradient but eventually, adding one more grain will trigger a major avalanche sends the gradient back to a much lower value.
In a self-organised critical system such as this a tiny insignificant event can trigger a dramatic effect - such as the collapse of a civilisation. For any area a "fractal dimension" can be worked out. The fractal patterns are often used by archaeologists to quantify settlement patterns.
The fractal dimension is used to find out how quickly a self similarity pattern scales up, the smaller the jump between each level of self similarity, the higher the fractal dimension. The mayan civilisation of Yucatan had a fractal dimension of 1.51. Considering 2 is the maximum value this is getting pretty high. Now before you say humans are too unpredictable to have a self organised criticality it has already been proven that the devastation caused by war follows the pattern. Now the sand pile can be related to a society. As the society becomes ever more efficient, optimising and reoptimising the use of resources as its needs change, it reaches a critical point. There may be many small upheavals and disasters along the road but there will come a point when all available resources are already spoken for yet more are needed. This will precipitate crises such as famine which could lead to war as groups compete for resources.
There does not have to be a major change. It could, be as with the sand pile, a tiny change is all that is necessary to reset the system.
As more research is done into this area it will become more clear whether the stability of a society can really be predicted by this method. At the moment it is only correlation implying causation. However if more research proves this theory true then technocracy sounds like a system which is destined for collapse.
If you want the political side, the Journal of Theoretical Politics published an article last year (volume 14 page 195) on the theory that self-organised criticality could collapse a society. However at the time the mathmatical research had not been conducted.

[CyberDragon]

ok i dont want to make this an argument about computer production but i have a friends who are directors in hitachi and it is on their authority that the people who actually make the computers only make to order. The reason that premade computers are flying off the shelves in retail stores is because they made after the retailer ordered them.

Also the 0.7 or 0.8 is correct. A manufacturer makes about 30% of his sale price as profit.

Now technocracy may talk about sustainability and conservation of resources. However. If the population size is increasing then more resources are needed. As i think i said there will come a point when no more resources are available. This does not mean they have been used up. It means there is not enough physical mass to give everyone as much as the need (not want). Efficiency is required to make the best of what is available and as the population grows, resources will inevitably become tighter. Therefore the population will have to become more efficient until the point where it is impossible to improve anymore.

If you really want to take this into the realms of maths/physics.
E = mC^2
now the only time there is complete conversoin of mass to energy is when a positron collides with an electron. If we could obtain perfect mass to energy conversion. One Kilogram mass would approximately be enough to toast 600000000000 pieces of bread in an average toaster. Now with the worlds population being about 40000000000, if every person had 2 pieces of toast every day, 1KG of mass perfectly converted to energy would allow the worlds population to have toast for 7.5 days.

As we cannot get this perfect conversion we use the best forms of power we know. There are 430 operational fission reactors in the world. However these only provide 16% of the worlds total electrical energy. On an efficiency scale the average electrical generatinion staion (including nuclear plants) has an efficiency of 33%. So with 33% efficiency suddenly everyone can only have toast on 2.5 days. And we havent even included all the energy loss in sending the electricty through the national grid and lost to the air around the toaster.

If technocracy was the ultimate in efficiency and had a perfect 100% efficiency in energy conversion, you are right in saying the lights wouldnt go out. However i dont think the mayans worried too much about electricity.

Food is the key resource in any society. And there will certinly come a time when all available land is used up in growing crops and grazing animals. This situaiton cannot be rectified. It is only possible to grow so much food and fit so many animals into a certain space. The worst bit about all the good intentions behind technocracy is they cannot solve the food problem. Yes you can grow GM crops that grow faster and have GM animals that reach maturity in a year or less depending on the animal, but as you said production equals consumption so according to you if consumption increases production will not increase as you have already agreed with me that companies are legally obliged to produce at their maximum capacity.
However lets assume that they are not producing at full capacity. There would come a point when the major industrial companies would begin to compete with the agricultural workers for land. This would be the most likely start of any tremblings before the whole pile would tumble.

[infestedterran]

ok i dont want to make this an argument about computer production but i have a friends who are directors in hitachi and it is on their authority that the people who actually make the computers only make to order. The reason that premade computers are flying off the shelves in retail stores is because they made after the retailer ordered them.

Also the 0.7 or 0.8 is correct. A manufacturer makes about 30% of his sale price as profit.

Now technocracy may talk about sustainability and conservation of resources. However. If the population size is increasing then more resources are needed. As i think i said there will come a point when no more resources are available. This does not mean they have been used up. It means there is not enough physical mass to give everyone as much as the need (not want). Efficiency is required to make the best of what is available and as the population grows, resources will inevitably become tighter. Therefore the population will have to become more efficient until the point where it is impossible to improve anymore.

If you really want to take this into the realms of maths/physics.
E = mC^2
now the only time there is complete conversoin of mass to energy is when a positron collides with an electron. If we could obtain perfect mass to energy conversion. One Kilogram mass would approximately be enough to toast 600000000000 pieces of bread in an average toaster. Now with the worlds population being about 40000000000, if every person had 2 pieces of toast every day, 1KG of mass perfectly converted to energy would allow the worlds population to have toast for 7.5 days.

As we cannot get this perfect conversion we use the best forms of power we know. There are 430 operational fission reactors in the world. However these only provide 16% of the worlds total electrical energy. On an efficiency scale the average electrical generatinion staion (including nuclear plants) has an efficiency of 33%. So with 33% efficiency suddenly everyone can only have toast on 2.5 days. And we havent even included all the energy loss in sending the electricty through the national grid and lost to the air around the toaster.

If technocracy was the ultimate in efficiency and had a perfect 100% efficiency in energy conversion, you are right in saying the lights wouldnt go out. However i dont think the mayans worried too much about electricity.

Food is the key resource in any society. And there will certinly come a time when all available land is used up in growing crops and grazing animals. This situaiton cannot be rectified. It is only possible to grow so much food and fit so many animals into a certain space. The worst bit about all the good intentions behind technocracy is they cannot solve the food problem. Yes you can grow GM crops that grow faster and have GM animals that reach maturity in a year or less depending on the animal, but as you said production equals consumption so according to you if consumption increases production will not increase as you have already agreed with me that companies are legally obliged to produce at their maximum capacity.
However lets assume that they are not producing at full capacity. There would come a point when the major industrial companies would begin to compete with the agricultural workers for land. This would be the most likely start of any tremblings before the whole pile would tumble.

Are you saying that we need scarcity economics and that an abundance is impossible? Is your argument that in a Technocracy we will run out of food and/or land? There is much that can be done to solve such problems. The one that may come into mind first is solving the problem through legislation. However, it is obvious that the state is stepping far over the line when they dont allow you to reproduce and have a baby. But, the thing that will seem far less obvious is how some couples (or just people in general) cant even have a child because if they did they would be forcing a life of poverty upon their offspring. So as you can see, the Price System isnt exactly maintaining such freedom. But already this is assuming that in a Technocracy there will be a massive baby boom and that overpopulation will climb to the top of all issues threatening humanity. This argument is also assuming that there are not other factors when it comes to reproduction like social and cultural factors. Economic condition is most certainly not the only factor when it comes to reproduction. Let me say now that I used the previous as an example and nothing more. If such extremes were taken in a Technocracy they would certainly first be approved by the use of Direct Democracy and an overwhelming approval of the population. But I do not make any of these assumptions, nor do I believe any of my fellow Technocrats do, but it is important to consider the worst possible outcomes, if not all possible outcomes. Then again, as optimistic as this may sound, it is possible that global human overpopulation could fuel a new age of space exploration and expansion. Does this sound too optimistic? I do not know who could possibly be against this type of expansion if it were done by a politically unified Earth. But this possible alternative is far better than limiting reproduction is it not?

[CyberDragon]

I'm not assuming anything about a baby boom. The mayan civilisation lasted 2000 years. In the same amount of time the current population will greatly increase. To support this population we will need more food and land. At the moment there is the potential to produce these extra resources. However what i am saying is that at some point, through natural growth of the population there will come a time when there is a perfect balance of resources to people. But as the population will continue to grow this balance will be upset and there will become a scarcity of certain things which will lead to competition for these scarce resources and so a downward spiral begins.
Overpopulation hardly comes into this. The real problem is our consumption of resources. As the population increases, so the total consumption of resources will increase by a relative amount. What i am describing is the point where our necessary consumption of resources exceeds the resources available. This could take a long time but it will inevitably happen.

[infestedterran]

You seem to contradict yourself when you say: "through natural growth of the population" and "But as the population will continue to grow" also "As the population increases, so the total consumption of resources will increase by a relative amount", then saying that "overpopulation hardly comes into this."

If what you say is true: "As the population increases, so the total consumption of resources will increase by a relative amount." Then the consumption of resources can be regulated by regulating population growth. This is only logical. But if what you are saying is that no matter the size of the population we will inevitably run out of resources, then also this will make inevitable the acquisition of resources from somewhere other than Earth. This is also only logical.

Also, I dont exactly understand your political position on the matter. In other words, what is it that you believe humanity should do regarding this issue? This isnt saying that you must have a position, im just curious on what your alternative may be, if any.

[CyberDragon]

This might be my last post for a while.

I do not expect the population to grow exponentially and i do not anticipate overpopulation. There will always be more space to build housing. However i am saying that as you want a technologically governed state the population will grow as a result of old people living longer. People do not die at the same rate as people are born in developed countries. MORE PEOPLE ARE BORN. If you intend to support everyone until their natural death then more housing space will be required. You all seem to be thinking that i am talking on a relatively short time scale. The whole process of reaching balance then going past it could take a million years but it will happen.

My Solution:

1.find a renewable source of power. Although fusion power will keep us going for millenia once it is fully operational it is not renewable.

2.implement a system where no couple is permitted to have more than two children (or if you prefer one child per person). This will allow a balance to be maintained. It may seem a bit harsh but it is fair. Of course if a person is physically unable to have children or does not want to they can choose someone to give their right to.

3.I would not remove the monetary system as it is very powerful.

4.Do a statistical study to calculate the amount of necessary resources per person. Allocate land to each of these resources so that the ideal amount is always being produced. These resources are produced by the state using taxes and given to the population for free. All other land is available for private companies to buy or individuals to own.

5. Private companies are only there to produce luxury resources. This is why the monetary system is still needed.