Skeptic Project

Yah, extra butter.

Also, VTV is a kind of a moron, debating economics from the weakest possible economic position one can be in.

It's the equivalent of a small boy wanting to fly by flapping his arms debating an aerodynamics expert.

Popcorn's ready, help yourselves.

VTV's previous job as a 711 clerk has given him a formidable education in the field of economics.

I'm pretty sure he has a better understanding of economics than anyone on TZM.

Should be pretty clear after my PMs that I don't agree with him, but that doesn't mean he won't be able to utterly destroy TVPs economics.

Those Zeitgeisters throwing in their copypasta are really ruining the show for me.

The theory of utility is, while being mostly true, too generalizing to be any useful for organizing an economy. That's my opinion, but y'all feel free to disagree, I won't call you intellectually inhibited.

That said - everything aegis says can easily be applied to a technocratic system, if you start sorting and prioritizing products and cap demand (I can't really eat more than 6000kcal worth of apples a day, and 3000kcal would be enough even for a hobby bodybuilder) & supply intelligently.

I was curious if TZM would be open minded enough to come to a similar conclusion, but so far they haven't presented any data at all, only emotionally biased statements.

"Flapping your arms won't make you fly"
"But driving cars kills people!"

Holy shit.... Aegis, you just fucking handed me my fucking A for my Economics class....

VTV pulls out the multiple outs!

He claims you can't provide data because no data exists for that which they're arguing for!

lol. what a fucking moron. He thinks we should build RBEs. then when someone challenges him, he says you can't question RBEs because there's no proof they're going to fail.

Thankfully, VTV will have no impact on this world.

And ever more thankfully, aegis called him out on it.

And I'm in.

Get this, I'm not a scientist, yet I try to sell them on scientific processes.

I'll make some more popcorn.

You don't need to understand aerodynamics to be a pilot.

Actually, understanding economics might hinder your ability to make money, but that's a different thing.

VTV said the new movie will backup their claims, so I'll probably wait for that.

> Money is nothing but a medium of exchange, a standard unit by which you can
> measure other things.

I don't really have an issue with that part myself, and neither really should TZM.

The argument should not be about money, but the management of money and how it is used.

> Now, let’s look at the proposals of the Venus Project.

There are proposals ?

I thought RBE was a rather vague term that no one had really figured out what it would mean yet in practice...

> Its first claim is that the current supply and demand balance results in a lot
> of demand being unsatisfied.

Well, lots of homeless people demand houses, so I guess thats true!

> Resources need to be diverted away from making other things to create these
> additional units of Good X.

Ok, that makes sense in simple terms, if you want to build more houses, it probably means your going to have less stuff to build say, Ipods..

> we know that the combined utility for all goods and services is now lower than it
> was before.

So a few more people than expected go without Ipods, but everyone is housed.. seems a good exchange to me..

> if I have a car built that can last for 50 years, it is going to need more resources
> to build than a car that will last 10 years.

Yes, but over the a long time period say, 50 years, I reckon it will take less resources to build and maintain one car, than to build 5 of them, and deal with the disposal costs at the end..

Lets not forget to add in pollution costs here.. (Manufactoring pollution and disposal at end of lifetime pollution for said vehicle.)

> At the same time, technological advances take place all the time. Every year, a new
> car could be built that is better than the car produced a year before.

Better in what way ?

MPG ? thats not really changed much in a hundred years when you look closely..

So a modern car has electric windows, do we need electric windows ?

> So now you have all these cars that are supposed to last 50 years that everybody
> is trading in for these new cars after 1 year.

Ah, so he is talking about, what if in an RBE future, we build things to last 50 years, but bring out anew model every year..

We could solve that by only bringing out a new model every 50 years :-)

Or producing a product that can have parts of it upgraded, much like a PC might still have the same full tower case it had when it was a 486, than when it is the latest Intel I7/etc.

He has a point..

But, in an RBE style future, if you knew you could bring out a new product every year and everyone wanted to upgrade and upgrades was, say, free somewhat, then fine, only make the first product last a year in the first place!

But, considering it takes time to make all these new products, say 6 billion cars for everyone on the planet, its not going to be an overnight thing, so perhaps we make only 1 billion new cars a year, which means someones going to have to stick with their car for 5 years before they get a new one..

So lets perhaps plan for that kind of replacement cycle, eg. how ever long it takes to replace every product with the latest model (Assuming we don't design the product so parts can be upgraded.) is how long its built for.

> The real work that needs to be done is not destroying the system we have,
> but working to make sure it runs as well as it possibly can.

Agreed.

VTV says:

> There are a lot of ways you can design a product to accept upgrades easily and
> efficiently. This is not currently done because of the profit motive making it better
> in the long run to just have someone buy an entirely new product. Also, we will be
> designing products that are very easy to recycle.

Generally agreed there.

> - Interest - the main reason for inventing that debt money system, for sole purpose
> that bankers can make profit out of profit.

A good reason for someone (TZM..) to create a bank and not make a fat profit out of interest...

Competition is good remember :-)

So lets compete!

> - the 95 % of the things u say are "goods" are actually worthless crap produced
> only for fast profit not for true utility,

Perhaps not 95%, but certainly a good chunk I'd agree with that.

> Ppl will NOT OWN cars, they will use them when needed.

We could do that today, if we made the cost of using them, less than the cost of ownership, plus we need to make it convient to use them, like a taxi service..

So, build low cost vehicles, run a low priced taxi service, bingo, convert people from wanting their own cars! (Or more, people who cannot afford their own cars..)

> 100 companies that make same product and by that they only needlessly multiply
> the product (and multiply the waste of resources with that) and trying to make
> the consumers to buy it by implanting false desires with marketing tricks, or
> one company that makes that product for all in regard to actual realistic needs?

I have to say, I prefer the one company making a decent product than 100 making not quite a decent product and avoid all that replicated work.

But, there is the issue of how to make sure that one company does a good job, and doesn't create a dud product that because there is no competition, there is no one to put them outof business if they do..

So, nice in theory, but difficult in practice, unless perhaps you always make sure you listen to what your customer wants and deliver it...

> The cost of pollution at this rate goes far beyond anything that your going to put
> on a graph

It would be interesting to see pollution costs, as I'm not sure its particularly easy to work out the long term costs. (Cleanup costs are often, moving waste from one place to another, not actually fixing the problem.)

VTV said:

> Just design products that don't pollute in the first place.

Here here!

(See, VTV can at times, produce some good points.)

> There is no way this system could be in any way manipulated to actually take care
> of mankind.

I reckon it could be.

For example, if companies start appearing that give customers what they want, without making an obsene profit, then I reckon people would buy that product.

Eg. wouldn't you use a bank for a loan if the interest was 1% compared with a bank that charged 30% ?

Wouldn't you rent a house if the rent was $100 a month, rather than $1,000 ?

> It doesn't really matter who owns that, since the demand and utility curves as
> the system as a whole do not change and are still forced to come to an efficient
> allocation.

I'm not entirely clear what he means here.

Does he mean that for example, rental prices for property are the lowest they can be ?

If so, that doesn't gell with my listening to landlords pointing out they can charge more this month to make more money, because the market will bare it, the price having little to do with actual costs...

> You should be the first to admit that increasing your income does not necessarily
> make you happier,

I think in VTV's case, an increase in his income has made him a hell of a lot happier!

I also think generally speaking, that yes, an increase in income does make one noticely happier.

> so the division of income should not necessarily have any direct impact of the
> happiness of the system as a whole.

I think I see what he is saying, but without realising there are tons of poor in the world at the moment.

If you exist on $1 a day, an increase to $2 is a big thing in your happiness scale, whilst if you earn $1,000 a day, an increase to $1,001 isn't going to be really noticed in the grand scheme of things.

It would be interesting to get the person to come here and debate with us..

> (it is always worth less in the future than it is right now, so by paying more back
> in the future, you are really just repaying the original amount)

That can be true, if the interest level is low enough, but for those are who poor, their interest level options tend to be high, whilst those who are rich, can get rather low interest level loans..

> by borrowing money to create growth, you automatically create the money that you use
> to repay the loan. Plus profit.

True, but lets not forget there is often a lot of profit to be made from lending money in the first place. (And a good reason to become a lender ourselves.)

> Please show me some evidence that this does not come to an efficient outcome.

I would agree that yes, the outcome is efficient.

The argument should only really be about, what outcome do we want ?

If we want cheap housing, then someone needs to build and sell cheap housing. (If no one is doing that, then TZM/etc. should do that to make it happen.)

> not to be snooty, but in a debate, all points brought up for discussion are
> called "claims".

FX [ amused look ]

> What I did say is that if you focus on increasing production of one good or service
> to the point where all demand is satisfied, you do so at the expense of all other
> goods and services

I don't think anyone is going to argue against that.

> With natural economic growth, the production possibilities curve of the entire
> system expands at a rate of roughly 2% a year.

Thats an interesting figure, so does that mean, once you have everyone housed and feed in a community, that as long as your population increase is less than your economic growth, that no future folk will be homeless on the streets ?

And in essence, one might say, homelessness is caused by our population increase exceeding our economic growth rate ?

> we have advanced our agricultural technology to the point where not only is corn
> cheap enough for literally all people to buy enough to satisfy their personal demand

Not really, not when 99% of our income might go towards paying for housing..

One might ask, why have food prices gone up more than 50% in the last few years ?

> we give away tens of thousands of tonnes each year in humanitarian efforts.

Yeah, to developing nations, what about developed nations starving homeless!

> And production keeps rising.

Is it ?

Perhaps it was, or is in some countries, but last time I looked the EU for example, has seen production fall the last few years. (To the point that they need imports to keep everyone fed..)

Bad news for Russia:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d8599c8-a177-11df-9656-00144feabdc0.html</p>

Good news for US:

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/08/12/russian-drought-and-fires-catches-the-us-with-record-crops-of-corn-and-soybeans</p>

Seems we are still slaves to bad weather.

Lets build more hydroponics!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1025689/Welcome-Thanet-Earth-The-biggest-greenhouse-Britain-unveiled.html</p>

Shouldn't TZM be building these ?

> live next to an auto scrap yard, I can already assure you that there is not a scrap
> of vehicles that go to waste.

Most if not all of the scrap yards I know about have the msot polluted soils you could ever hope to see, from all that leaking oil/fluids and ground in broken plastics..

Are really all the plastic parts recycled, including the soft trim parts like seating and foam ?

How is the paint recycled, or is that burnt off ?

> Sometimes it is easier to clean up a mess rather than avoid making it.

That depends on whether you mean by clean up, to treat and effectively nutilise the bad bits, eg. you might clean up spilt mercuy and reuse it 100%, or you might just stick it in a sealed container and bury it..

One being a better thing to do than the other in my eyes.

> If there is a coal plant that produces 10 tons of CO2 a day, it is polluting.
> A geothermal powerplant that would be built to replace it would cost half a billion
> dollars worth of resources. Why would we invest all of that to build the geothermal
> plant if we could use carbon capture technology paired with tree planting to
> eliminate the CO2 pollution for half the cost?

Several reasons, offhand a coal plant produces more than just CO2:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Now, tree planting, and burning, that is something I'm for, though:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A3uub9qzvBQJ:bio-fuel-watch.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-biomass-wood-energy-is-not-answer.html+biofuel+burning+wood+produces+pollution&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

> First and foremost, biomass burning isn't green. Burning wood produces huge amounts
> of pollution. Especially in valleys like Missoula where temperature inversions are
> common, pollution from a biomass burner will be the source of numerous health
> ailments. Because of the air pollution and human health concerns, the Oregon Chapter
> of the American Lung Association, the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Florida
> Medical Association, have all established policies opposing large-scale biomass
> plants.
>
> The reason for this medical concern is that even with the best pollution control
> devises, biomass energy is extremely dirty. For instance, one of the biggest biomass
> burners now in operation, the McNeil biomass plant in Burlington, Vermont is the
> number one pollution source in the state, emitting 79 classified pollutants. Biomass
> releases dioxins, and as much particulates as coal burning, plus carbon monoxide,
> nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and contribute to ozone formation.

Makes it look like it isn't so easy to do it without issues either..

So, perhaps geothermal is actually a good long term bet..

Unless we can figure out a way to scrub out all those nasties from burning wood..

> The global poverty rate has been driven down every single year.

Really ?

I'd like to see some figures on that, and also how are they measuring it, as what I've seen in the last 40 years here in the UK is an increase in the povetry rate, not a decrease..

> In the United States and Western Europe, it is impossible to starve to death.

Not quite impossible:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/pens-n23.shtml</p>

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260205/Baby-starved-death-mothers-flat-despite-care-worker-visits.html</p>

> I was under the impression this was supposed to be a proper debate.

FX [ amused look again ]

> The bank's only profit go back into the creation of more loans

Depends on how you measure profit, some might argue that the huge pay cheques people working for the banks receive might be seen as profits...

http://www.mgmsint.com/news/uk-bank-bonuses-to-top-7-billion-this-year/</p>

Let see, as an average kind of Joe, what has the banking sector done for me directly in the last year, has it given me cheap loans at all, no, any loans, no, has my credit card interest gone down, no its gone up, have they given me more credit cards to play with, no they took one away..

Can I get a business loan, no..

So just what are those bonuses for ?

Then there is the shareholders profit taken out of banking...

> You have to demonstrate that the pollution created would not be better
> addressed through taxation than it would scrapping the entire system.

This is why test communities need to be built...

> you still haven't provided any contrary information, such as how your economic
> model is supposed to function.

Indeed.

Any why, building test systems would be helpful. (Even starting with an MMORPG that 400,000+ TZM members play would be a good start..)

> The venus project is supposed to be based on the scientific method. I would like
> to see the science. You cannot go around saying that the status quo is inferior to
> an alternative without first demonstrating that the alternative genuinely is superior.

A good point.

At best, I would say, I reckon we can improve things somehow on the current system.

> Please provide a source of the cost of producing one megajoule of geothermal power
> versus producing one megajoule of power using various other energy methods. Keep in
> mind that there are more than a few geothermal plants already in use

Good call.

Though, having looked myself, its quite difficult to get hold of that data, and/or find out just what that data includes.

There is also the issue of, if we mass produced geothermal power plants, like for example this kind of design:

http://www.powertubeinc.com

Then how will that compete with the likes of coal one wonders..

Power stations should also include costs like, local health care costs which can be impacted by pollution levels going up.

There shouldn't be sums just on isolated figures like cost of electric production alone.

As much as I am also a fan of coal :-)

> It makes no sense to base our current decisions on what might be an option in
> the future.

Generally agreed.

Better to plan if you can with what you have today, than what you might have tomorrow.

But, by all means push the envelope a little.

"A RBE is indisputable in its physical foundation." - Merola

That's bullshit. Just because no one has tried a system that mirrors RBE exactly does not mean systems have not been tried that can allow one to make reasonable assumptions about the outcome of a RBE.

"Nature doesn't argue." - Merola

Merola now speaks for nature.

Merola speaks like a half assed guru now.