Yes, I agree. I believe that work originated here:
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/rethinking-the-fall-of-easter-island/1
Feature article, so apparently not paywalled - I'm not a subscriber, but
I can see it.
Jeff
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 2:27 PM, David L Babcock
After doing a bit more reading I am a little more convinced by the
argument that a significant cause of the deforestation was to provide
the wood to move the statues. Whether this was religious or not is
unclear, although that is plausible. It may be in part this need for
groups of people to
Socialism is based on public ownership of means of production AND the
price regulation.
Regulating prices creates the problem of economic calculation, which
leads to inherent inefficiencies in the market. There is a lot of
information contained in prices. In mature markets, prices generally
On 10/10/2012 12:39 AM, Eric Walker wrote:
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:39 PM, Jouni Valkonen
jounivalko...@gmail.com mailto:jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps if we force agriculture to skyscrapers and deserts, then
there is enough room for humans to live comfortably in bungalows.
Capitalism is no different from socialism in its threat of violence against
those who do not agree to its terms.
The best that civilization can do is adopt a system that allows assortative
migration by people to territories occupied by mutually consenting adults
to whatever system they strongly
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 10, 2012, at 4:14, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote:
It's nice that you have a vision; but other people have other visions;
and unfortunately, the only way for you to achieve your vision is to
threaten other people with violence. Perhaps if we force
The problem of ecological dominance is inherent in the eusocial nature of
civilized man. Eusociality results in ecological dominance. For a
discussion of this read E. O. Wilson's laterst book The Social Conquest of
Earth.
There is only one solution to this:
Civilization must leave the
What I think would be a good wake up call would be for someone (the BBC)
to do a six part drama that is as historically accurate as it can be
that covers the experience of a family on Easter Island as they went
through the period when they ran out of natural resources. I think that
would be a
Few ideas to add...
Some cogniticians have noticed the importance of the capacity of
curiosity and boredom in learning. Game is important too.
the kindergarten teacher gave us a pamphlet about kids education , and it
is clearly said the the job of kids is to play. (same for scientists IMHO).
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:39 PM, Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote:
My
prediction is that first reusable spacecraft will reach orbit in early
2020's.
The first reusable spacecraft achieved orbit on April 12, 1981.
From: Jouni
...
Also the difference between humans and most of the other smart animals,
such as elephants, dogs and dolphins is that they lack motivation to
develop themselves although here it is only a matter of degree,
not qualitative difference such as between animals and
I forgot the mention the fact that personalpen.orionworks.com is still under
construction. Many of the links don’t work.
...Too little time... too much to do.
Regards,
Steven Vincent Johnson
www.OrionWorks.com
www.zazzle.com/orionworks
fznidar...@aol.com wrote:
The Easter Island society ran out of wood and could not fish. The society
died out.
They did not die out. They were still there a century or two later when
Europeans showed up. Granted, they were in dire straits. They destroyed
their own environment, apparently for
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote:
There will be two options. First is a prefabrication that will come in
massive scale that everyone in the face of the Earth will notice it in
November 2012. Because Chinese are going to prefabricate and assemble the
world's tallest building that
I had thought that they destroyed their own environment through
overharvesting and overhunting, ie the population was to large to live
sustainably. This is not a particualrly religious reason. I had also
gathered that the statues etc were an attempt to appease their gods in
the hope that the
This economic system has already been developed. It is called socialism, or
what some people would call communism. When there is no more need for human
labor, it is obvious that governments are going to have to allocate resources.
Capitalism obviously won't work. Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012
I've heard that the story of overcutting trees causing and ecologic is a
legend.
it seems that too small civilisation collapsed because of a series of dry
years,while demography was too high.
This is a small isolated island, and a climate bad sequence caused a black
swan that swept the
Socialism has always failed because it merely replaces private sector
rent-seeking with public sector rent-seeking.
You have to disintermediate the public sector bureaucracy with a citizen's
dividend.
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.comwrote:
This economic
On 10/9/2012 11:53 AM, Nigel Dyer wrote:
I had thought that they destroyed their own environment through
overharvesting and overhunting, ie the population was to large to live
sustainably. This is not a particualrly religious reason. I had also
gathered that the statues etc were an attempt to
Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote:
I've heard that the story of overcutting trees causing and ecologic is a
legend.
Not according to J. Diamond and other recent books. They cut all the trees
to erect the statues. When a wooden British sailing ship arrived decades
later, they came
Assuming in the near future advances in robotics automation will
eventually manufacture all of our basic needs; we will be forced to
redefine what gives us value and purpose as we go about the business
of managing our daily lives. Regardless of whether we consciously
realize it or not most of us
It's a lot better than trying to reform capitalism. Also, you can have robots
running the government and allocating resources, so there would be no
bureaucracy.
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 16:18:39 -0500
Subject: Re: [Vo]:A new economic system will be needed in the next 20 to 100
years
From:
Sorry, would need to wait at least a thousand years for that.
On 09-Oct-12 19:44, Jarold McWilliams wrote:
It's a lot better than trying to reform capitalism. Also, you can
have robots running the government and allocating resources, so there
would be no bureaucracy.
Jed, I think that Diamond's idea is old, although I do not know what else
recent book you did refer.
However, Alain refers to Hunt Lipo rat theory, where rats ate the seeds of
the native forests. The theory was explained in their 2011 book, The Statues
that Walked:
Jarold, no, it is not called socialism. See my first post in this threat.
Socialism is based on public ownership of means of production AND the price
regulation. If income is just redistribute via basic income, it does not have
an effect of the ownership of means of production and definitely it
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:39 PM, Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.comwrote:
Perhaps if we force agriculture to skyscrapers and deserts, then there is
enough room for humans to live comfortably in bungalows. So we turn the
idea of city and country side upside down. That in the future humans
If only that were true. If you were to do some research into the final
years of Marconi in the UK, you would find that the reality was far from
the picture that you paint. The senior managers made some absolutely
disastrous business decisions, buying up highly overvalued companies,
putting
Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com wrote:
In a few hundred years, the coastal nations of the world will be required
to move their coastal cities inland 100 miles more or less to keep their
cities above water. Robots cannot do that sort of construction.
They cannot do it now. What makes you think
I wrote:
Unless you know of some specific technical limitation, material shortage,
law of nature, or some other factor that will prevent progress toward
a given goal, it is safest to assume that progress will continue and the
goal will be met. There is no indication that robots are
Jed said:
That is an unsupported opinion. I do not think biological carbon based
computers (brains) have any special properties that cannot be emulated in
silicon or other materials, but I could be wrong.
There are some biological carbon based computers (brains), that cannot ever
be
On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 8:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote:
We must make a human use of human beings as N. Weiner put it. The
problem is that the scope of human uses for human beings is getting
narrower and narrower.
No we musn'nt.
Humans, standing alone, are organisms with a
On Oct 8, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote:
This is quite different from saying that computers will definitely become
sentient (that is, self-aware; conscious). We do not yet understand what
sentience is so we cannot predict with confidence that machines can
The Easter Island society ran out of wood and could not fish. The society died
out.
Could that happen to us? Maybe the future is not so great.
-Original Message-
From: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com
To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com
Sent: Mon, Oct 8, 2012 10:39 pm
Subject:
Jed may think he's writing about economics, but he's actually writing
about morality and politics, because people pursue their economic
policies in their quest for morality.
For instance, Venezuela is falling apart.
Venezuela is falling apart.
extreme and idealistic systems are often bad...
It is often hard for thos in the system to admit it, and roland benabou
have made a paper about that : belief in a just world and redistributive
politic
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/BJW.pdf
what is sure is that human species is a social
Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote:
When people
respect others, and do not threaten violence against them to achieve
desired social and political goals, then the resulting economic system
is capitalism.
I believe you are missing the point. I am talking about the future, not the
I wrote:
Intelligent computers will design improved versions of the factories and
equipment. They will build or upgrade as many factories as needed without
human intervention. The production cost of the food will be as cheap per
kilogram as tap water is today.
Not just food, either.
I am not sure that it will go anything like as far as you believe Jed,
but some elements are already present. The first twenty years of my
working life were spent automating the production of telephone exchange
equipment, which resulted in many 1000s of people who used to work on
the
On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Nigel Dyer l...@thedyers.org.uk wrote:
I am not sure that it will go anything like as far as you believe Jed, but
some elements are already present. The first twenty years of my working
life were spent automating the production of telephone exchange equipment,
Nigel Dyer l...@thedyers.org.uk wrote:
I am not sure that it will go anything like as far as you believe Jed, but
some elements are already present.
I do not think there is any technical reason why things will not go as far
as I predict, or even farther to the brain in the bottle predicted by
On 10/07/2012 04:11 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
[...]
Now think about the world 200 or 300 years from now. The cost of
building food factories will be far cheaper. Robots will not only
build and maintain the building, and operate all of the equipment,
they will also bring in raw materials from
In a few hundred years, the coastal nations of the world will be required
to move their coastal cities inland 100 miles more or less to keep their
cities above water. Robots cannot do that sort of construction.
Cheers: Axil
On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 9:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com
Or possibly beneath the oceans, floating on the oceans or in the air if
energy is free...
We still need to deal with asteroid dark matter strikes. I think we can
head off the worst ones with gravitational redirection if we can detect
them early enough in space. Although I think the biggest
The *Central Artery/Tunnel Project* (*CA/T*), known unofficially as the *Big
Dig*, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery
(Interstate 93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into a
3.5-mile (5.6-km) tunnel
*The Boston Globe* estimated that the project will
I think it is cheaper to build a huge dam.
2012/10/8 Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com
The *Central Artery/Tunnel Project* (*CA/T*), known unofficially as the *Big
Dig*, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery
(Interstate 93), the chief highway through the heart of the city,
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote:
We are not capable of anything like the fully automated version in which
all of the necessity of life are handed out for free. That will take 100
years. Maybe 200 years.
As an interesting side note to the economic
Jed says:
...
Capitalism, communism, Feudalism, mercantalism and every other economic system
ever invented can be defined as:
A system to allocate human labor, goods and services.
Some of these systems have been efficient; others were inefficient. Some were
just; others were unjust, and
Is ancient China included as being part of the west? A quick check of
some basic history of ancient china seems to suggest that what I would
consider to be the organisation of human labor was present going right
back to the very earliest dynasties.
However, I would tend to think that so
Ironically, the transition to a post-labor political economy I worked out
in a white paper 20 years ago
(1992)http://ota.polyonymo.us/others-papers/NetAssetTax_Bowery.txtwas
motivated by my
experience getting legislation drafted and signed into law that privatized
government technology
From Jed:
...
Human labor is now losing value. Robots and intelligent computers are
replacing human workers in many fields, including ones that people
previously thought could never be done by machines. Within 20 to 100 years,
human labor will be worthless.
As you have previously
Jed pointed out the economic problem that we are facing. But I think that
it is more about semantics than the real problem. If we just change our
language, then we can do correct economic policy, because this new-speak
will inherently force us to think in terms what we do really want for the
OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson svj.orionwo...@gmail.com wrote:
LITT argues from the premise that surviving companies that
continue to take advantage of automation and robotics may need to be
taxed with something akin to a re-employment tax. Monies collected
would be used to either pay the
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