A Question of Identity...

[mahf]

So much of the important stuff of life has to do with identity. We claim identities for ourselves, we hide them, admit to them, question which ones are real and which ones don't matter. We spend our lives negotiating with society to achieve certain identities, and much of our social interaction is spent confirming and reconfirming identities to

Comments

Re: Response

[mahf]

I agree we don't violate human rights, that's what I was trying to say. Obviously efficiency isn't our *only* goal, otherwise things would be a lot uglier than they are.

Actually, the only reason why slowing down production would lead to economic collapse is that we are constantly borrowing against the future; i.e. money doesn't represent real physical resources, it represents future production. So if in the future we don't *actually* have more goods, then loans never get repaid and the whole economic system collapses. If we stopped lending at interest and let money only represent goods that exist in the *present* then things would change a lot. We'd obviously end up with a lot more farmers and farms wouldn't be quite so efficient or dependent on technology. We'd obviously be able to pay a lot more attention to quality instead of quantity. It would no longer be considered a good thing to destroy land to get more food from it *right now*. It would no longer be worth it to destroy the future to increase production *right now.* It would also cease to be a benefit to buy from someone all the way across the country to save a few bucks.

The Japanese education system is definitely worth commenting on. They, unlike us, have a hardcore system of tracking, which means that only the kids who are most academically talented go onto what we would call high school. The others go onto technical school and apprenticeships, which in their culture is not as shameful a thing as it is here. It isn't considered "failing." This also makes teacher's jobs monumentally easier, as does the cultural respect that teachers get there as opposed to here. So yeah, I think there are a lot of ways that the japanese education system clearly works a lot better than ours, because its closer to dealing with the reality that not being good at school is not the same thing as not being good at life, and they have more freedom to focus on things that are useful and beneficial than we do here.

Re: Response

[mahf]

Are you suggesting we go back to the dark ages? We grew out of a farming society for a number of reasons. We don't have a barter system any longer and as far as money representing goods in the present well you'd have to put a value on those goods somehow. Fewer goods equals higher per unit value. Not looking too good there. Money itself is only a promise really and it's very volatile. It does not represent goods in the present. It's a promise on gold in the reserve. I do not know very much about the present state of "borrowing against the future," but loans are usually made against something of equal value in the present (i.e. mortgages). One cannot possibly destroy the future. One can only deal with the present. As far as buying from across the country goes. Looks like your grocery store chains are going out of business if you halt that. This would cause quite a number of problems. Specialized businesses that probably actually practice what you would like to see in terms of apprenticeship and the likes would likely go out of business. The farms would have to be larger yes, but they'd also have to be more efficient and pretty dependent on technology in order to feed our populace. It's almost as though you are suggesting we return to a point from which we advanced long ago. I mean why stop at buying from across the country. What about imports? We are an import based society. Shut down trade with other countries? Looks like we won't be driving anywhere anylonger unless we drill Alaska or have a great deal of the products we currently have on store shelves. We would probably have a revolution after all is said and done. It makes very little sense to dream of returning to a past that we left long ago. It will not likely happen.

Re: Response

[mahf]

I'm suggesting that we used to have something that was sustainable, and succeeded at producing enough food and goods for everybody, and allowed communities to be relatively independent economically. But what I mean by borrowing against the future is this. If I take out a loan at interest, which is what our whole society does over and over again, that means that I am promising to take that money and make it into more money in the future. At a macroeconomic level, this means that production has to continually increase indepently of need. If production does not increase, we cannot pay back our loans, and we have economic collapse, even if we have an overabundance of goods. It makes no sense.

You say we cannot destroy the future. I say that's very naive. We do it all the time as our farming techniques become more and more focused on production now rather than sustainability. This makes little to no sense since our farming industry produces WAY more food than we buy, but the government buys up all the extra food. This is the only way we have under the present system to avoid economic collapse. The only way we can survive is to do things that destroy our ability to produce in the future.

We do rely heavily on imports, but it was not always so. There was a time when people knew the sensibility in creating communities that produced as much of what they needed as possible *within* that community.

I don't suggest shutting down trade with other countries altogether, but I do suggest being responsible. Why give other people so much political and economic power over ourselves? It goes against all sense. The only thing it satisfies is our continual desire for more and more, faster and faster with as little effort as possible. It is irresponsible and it is bound to collapse.

I think you should read a little bit about the oil issue you just pointed to. Is it really wise to continue relying so heavily on a fuel that 1) will soon cost energy to extract than can be extracted from it, and 2) makes the earth less and less habitable? You want to plug the hole by draining oil from somewhere else. Wouldn't it make sense to realize that eventually there will be nowhere left to get oil from, and find a way to survive without it?

We're destroying our water supplies, our farmland, our forests, we're burning up our fuel as if it can never run out. We're producing more and more food that is filled with more and more chemicals that is worse and worse for us. And you say we can't destroy the future. I sincerely hope you're right. But even if you are, it doesn't give us the right to be so greedy and callous about it. We need to remember that there are limits. We *can* use it all up, and we are well on our way. We need to learn to take just what we need, and be grateful for it and satisfied with it.

I know it aint' likely to happen on its own. But I say this stuff because individual people can make choices about how they live, and that makes a difference. And I have to try, because I would rather us slowly figure this out than have it thrust upon us in a catastrophe.