i was kidnapped
i don't know what day it is, or how many days it has been. i believe it was a fort night ago, i was captured by the hippies and interagated. i was torchered and enlighted. i also had my mind blown a few times
( Read more... )
1. Is it "progress" to increase ease of life but decrease meaning of life?
2. Is there a way to increase both ease and meaning?
3. Why do we have money?
4. Reverting to a trading system (one more basic than the monetary system) would make life harder.
5. Or, forcing the government to provide us with our necessary goods is strikingly similar to socialism/communism, ideas that have been shown to fail under real-world implementation.
6a. Is community service based solely on consumption?
How is the consumption of a corporation/company/business discerned from the consumption of the individual?
6b. In general, how is consumption measured?
7. Also, do people in "more meaningful" jobs (such as doctor, teacher, etc.) get breaks on community service? If so, how is a job defined as meaningful?
8. Using criminals to provide all the community service a country needs seems a bit impractical/impossible.
9. I spend a lot of time on the computer, but spend much of that time interacting with people I could never interact with otherwise (through instant messenger, IRC, forums). Also, I am able to access a lot more (better) information online than through "classical" media such as TV and radio and people.
10. How do we stop people from becoming addicted to their computers? As stated above, there are many things accessible only through computers and the Internet. However, balance is needed. I do not look forward to a world like that in The Machine Stops. (by the way, as the site says, "Anybody who uses the Internet should read E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops.")
11. What incentive is there for people to perform hard jobs?
Reply
Reply
spencer, answers in the morning.
Reply
2. the meaning of life is doing what you want and following your heart. so in theory by inceasing ease and elminating unwanted physical hardship, we are leaving more time to follow our heart and do what we truly want because we will not be forced to preform mundane tasks. therefore increasing ease of life, is increasing the meaning of life.
3. a copuple reasons for money:
modern day money was created because lord and kings began to tax land. the farmers living on the land could not pay the taxes in goods so they were forced to go to market and sell goods for a gold based currency.
globalization forced standards to be made so trade could be made world wide. when we set something as a standard we are giving it a forced value, a forced sense of appreciation. a bottle of water to me is not worth much, but to a guy in the dessert its worth alot but to the market it is only worth $1 to both of us.
speicilty items also forced us to use money. when there is a good that only one person can make and everyone wants, this person can't keep accepting food, chairs, services, ect for their good. he needs to create a savings of some sort. if we had social security and health care there would be no need for savings.
4. it would make things more complicated but then people would consume less. one reason why we consume soo much is because it is soo easy to consume. by elimating standards, we make it up to the consumer to find out who has the best products, this makes the providers of the good compete to make the best good. this also increases a sense of trust with the buyers and sellers.(this last part about trust doesn't answer the question but i thought i would throw that in there)
5. i haven't quite figured this out. maybe instead of providing the food, the government only provides the means to get the food. this goes back to money and consuming too much. if we don't elminate money than government could provide an allowance.
(lunch break)
Reply
if the worker is freelance then what they consume to finish the job is their responiblity.
6b. i came up with this idea in a paper i wrote for a class. every person was given an energy card. this card would be swiped to buy gas and before you plug anything into an outlet. it would mean big brother because then the governement can see where you are and how much energy you are using but this would also result in less consumption...as well as area's for crime and smuggling.
7. good point. i would say that the jobs that directly effect and interact with the community would be free from community service because their job is serving the community. this could lead to the arguement that every job ultimatly contributes to the well-fair of the community but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.
8. infact, using criminals to provide community service is slavery. what would keep the government from making anything a crime and arresting everyone and forcing them to work! BUT our government does this with mistaminor crimes already. i, for example, recieved 30 hours community service. if we made prison a horrible thing then no one would want to go there.... everything is based on the fact that there will be no corruption or abuse of power.
9. this is using technology to better your life but not live it. i can't really define the difference, i guess its all comes down to the individual.
10.i didn't read it yet but when people start to realize that life is more stimulating then they can balance it. it should be handeled like any addiction.
11. the same incentive there is for people to give their hard earned cash to the governement in the form of taxes.
Reply
Leave a comment