Selfishness and Society

[wil]

Originally Posted by Bishadi

take 2 wires, tie each to a razor blade, use a rubber band and toothpick to combine the razors blades but separated by the toothpick (not touching). Put the 'stinger' in water, place the other 2 ends of the wires in any live socket.......

see the bubbles.... there's your hydrogen/oxygen. keep the change.

and buy the way, is there anything you ever bought that pays for itself other than something used as a tool for/of work? meaning your car gets you to work, but the gas never paid for itself.

First you represent a debate of society and cause, then bark about how cool it is to be selfish, then share how money runs progress but really have no clue as to the sciences or any reality of any of it, and then laugh it up as if what this mentality has done to our globe is good and yet this same set of ideals is about to destroy a few billion folk....

Please .... from the opinion of this I...... you make me sick!

I'm sorry I disappoint but neither of us was to born to live upto the others expectations. You may disagree with me, but don't judge the site by your opinion of me.

Oh yes electrolysis, I'll take your hydrogen bubbles and use them to produce electricity but who will pay for the money I lost in doing so?? Sure windpower can do x, y, and z we all know that, unfortunately we also need wind, and enough folks not to complain about the eyesores. Your arguments don't hold water.

And I did not say I expect my car or anything else to pay for itself. I indicated if you can build anything that beats the annual operating costs I have for my vehicle today I will buy it! This equates to gas (or H or cng) milage, maintenance, cost and safety (which affects insurance).

And yes selfishness. If I can find someone selfish enough to make billions creating a car that doesn't use oil and can perform well, I'll gladly participate I'd also selfishly invest in his company and encourage others to be selfish as well as it would benefit us all.

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by wil

And I did not say I expect my car or anything else to pay for itself.

Originally Posted by wil

Oops caveat, it has to pay for itself. ie it has to work.

Come again?

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by wil

World populations it appears have been doubling every 125-150 years whilst we've the flu epidemic killing 25 million in 1918, WWI, WWII, German, Chinese, Russian and African genocides in the past 150 years haven't slowed that growth one bit.

Originally Posted by William Catton

between 1650 and 1850, a mere two centuries, the world's human population doubled. There had never before been such a huge increase in so short a time. It doubled again by 1930, in only eighty years. And the next doubling was to take only about forty-five years! As people and their resource-using implements became more numerous, the gap between carrying capacity and the resource-use load was inevitably closed, American land per American citizen shrank to a mere 11 acres - less than half the space available in Europe for each European just prior to Columbus's revolutionizing voyage. Meanwhile, per capita resource appetites had grown tremendously. The Age of Exuberance was necessarily temporary; it undermined its own foundations.

The Tragic Story of Human Success | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Originally Posted by wil

I say we better plan for double and double and double because it will happen. And once again, I am not married to the US system, capitalism, I am asking what country current or past has a system that we should be looking at for our future?

You are an unabashed optimist and true believer in the spirit of continual growth, improvement, and exuberance, wil.

Originally Posted by Catton

Being impermanent, this rise in apparent carrying capacity begged one enormously important question: What happens if population, as usual, increases until it nearly fills this temporarily expanded set of opportunities, and then, because the expansion was only temporary, the world finds itself (like the Indians on their shrunken territories) with a population excess? What are the implications of a carrying capacity deficit for mankind's future? What happens, for example, when supplies of oil become scarce, when tractor fuel becomes unavailable or prohibitively expensive, and when farmers again have to take 1/4th to 1/3rd of the land on which they now raise food for humans and convert it instead to raising feed for draft animals?

The Tragic Story of Human Success | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Remember that oil and energy production is not our only concern. The actual surface of the Earth and its oceans are finite as well. Do you think that a population of trillions and trillions of humans can comfortably exist on this one Earth? Will they be able to live selfishly? What about the animals they will need/want to eat? What about the grains and vegetables that they will want to grow and eat? Seems to me that the planet would be very crowded, and that environmental conditions would degrade until all land was desertified--barring of course a miracle discovery in land rejuvenation.

It shouldn't take much to convince you of this: seriously, think about all of the waste and pollution that is produced now. Then imagine that we have "free energy" somehow, and human population continues its exponential, explosive arc. With human population comes human consumption and waste.

The Earth will not support trillions of people, be they technologically advanced wind-farmers living in solar-paneled mansions and huts, or be they hunter-gatherers living in hides and harsh elements and under the stars. Exponentially increasing population is a problem.

[Pathless]

More relevant criticism from Catton:

We need to realize the "load" with which we humans burden the planet's ecosystems consists of more than just a population number. People living by different cultures not only reproduce at different rates; they impose very different per capita ecological impacts. Culture includes a population's technology and people's ways of organizing themselves. Each of us living in a "developed" country (i.e., industrialized far beyond anything conceivable to Malthus) has an enormously greater resource appetite and environmental impact than does each resident of a so-called "developing" country. For our grossly unsustainable manner of living, 6 billion is far too many.

Worse than Foreseen by Malthus

[cyberpi]

If I do NOT wish to be selfish, so instead I GIVE and GIVE something to my neighbors... then that something will always be energy, or it will use energy, or it will be the knowledge of how to use more energy. So then giving does NOT conserve energy. Death conserves energy.

I hope everyone realizes that the sun is dying. Daily the people selfishly use it, and that energy is not exactly free. It comes at a high price and the price is that the sun is dying. The more people who go out in the sun and make use of the light, or use the solar panels, or grow trees and plants, the more that the sun is being used. The sun is being used by more people at a higher rate now than ever in history. The sun's energy has been captured in the day and then the energy is used at night. So the poor sun has to light the day AND the night. All these cars that are burning oil are using energy that came from the sun millions of years ago, so when that energy source runs out the sun will have to be taxed even more heavily. I tell you the truth... the sun is dying. It is a fact. How many people can we allow to take from the sun? How many people will the sun permit to live? I am so selfish that I use the sun when there could be trillions of trillions of more people who could live on the very sun that I have used. I am so ashamed that I use the sun that I like to stay inside where I can use the least amount of sun. It is an indisputable fact that if you use the sun more today then there will be less sun for future generations to use. Of course if nobody uses the sun then the sun will still die all on its own, but lets not let that fact get in the way. The more sun that you use, the less that is available for me and the more sun that I use the less that is available for you. Bill Gates has been one of the bigger users of the sun and he has helped cause countless numbers of people to use the sun. Thats right these computers and appliances are all ultimately powered by the sun and whether anyone likes it or not the sun is limited. The sun is dying and there will be a day when the sun will not shine anymore. It is a fact... there will be a day when the sun will be dead. No more. Just think of the entire planet which will die when the sun is dead. So then, shame on those who use the sun? How selfish? Shame on those who give, and thus use even more sun? The sun is dying, and more people are taking advantage of its death now more than ever.

[seattlegal]

Does everyone remember Ayn Rand's Anthem?

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Does everyone remember Ayn Rand's Anthem?

I've never read it.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Pathless

I've never read it.

You can read it online for free here.

It's a rather short book. (Nothing like the size of Atlas Shrugged.)

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

If I do NOT wish to be selfish, so instead I GIVE and GIVE something to my neighbors... then that something will always be energy, or it will use energy, or it will be the knowledge of how to use more energy. So then giving does NOT conserve energy. Death conserves energy.

I hope everyone realizes that the sun is dying. Daily the people selfishly use it, and that energy is not exactly free. It comes at a high price and the price is that the sun is dying. The more people who go out in the sun and make use of the light, or use the solar panels, or grow trees and plants, the more that the sun is being used. The sun is being used by more people at a higher rate now than ever in history. The sun's energy has been captured in the day and then the energy is used at night. So the poor sun has to light the day AND the night. All these cars that are burning oil are using energy that came from the sun millions of years ago, so when that energy source runs out the sun will have to be taxed even more heavily. I tell you the truth... the sun is dying. It is a fact. How many people can we allow to take from the sun? How many people will the sun permit to live? I am so selfish that I use the sun when there could be trillions of trillions of more people who could live on the very sun that I have used. I am so ashamed that I use the sun that I like to stay inside where I can use the least amount of sun. It is an indisputable fact that if you use the sun more today then there will be less sun for future generations to use. Of course if nobody uses the sun then the sun will still die all on its own, but lets not let that fact get in the way. The more sun that you use, the less that is available for me and the more sun that I use the less that is available for you. Bill Gates has been one of the bigger users of the sun and he has helped cause countless numbers of people to use the sun. Thats right these computers and appliances are all ultimately powered by the sun and whether anyone likes it or not the sun is limited. The sun is dying and there will be a day when the sun will not shine anymore. It is a fact... there will be a day when the sun will be dead. No more. Just think of the entire planet which will die when the sun is dead. So then, shame on those who use the sun? How selfish? Shame on those who give, and thus use even more sun? The sun is dying, and more people are taking advantage of its death now more than ever.

Wow. Nice use of sarcasm and distortion to undermine an argument.

The energy that comes from the sun is a relative constant. The energy that is stored in fossil fuels is relatively constant as well. There is a difference, though. Fossil fuels are ancient stores of the sun's energy and will be used up long before the sun dies out. The sun will continue delivering energy for much longer than we will be able to extract fossil fuels.

[wil]

Originally Posted by wil

And I did not say I expect my car or anything else to pay for itself.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wil
Oops caveat, it has to pay for itself. ie it has to work.

Originally Posted by Pathless

Come again?

Now Pathless, you know that is not fair, taking my words out of context. The first quote is in response to Bishadi indicating that I thought a car was supposed to pay for itself, where I really said that his wonderful H-car or cng car needed to have lower annual operating costs while providing usefulness (ie carrying load, safetly, travel distance, etc) We both agreed that tools and such paid for themselves hence the second quote.

Originally Posted by wil

I'm telling you right now, if you've got the solution, build me the solar panel that will create the hydrogen and I'll buy it now. Oops caveat, it has to pay for itself. ie it has to work.

was in regards to what I consider a tool ie the solar cell must create hydrogen at a rate which makes the cost of the solar cell less over the long haul then creating hydrogen by conventional methods. Unfortunately currently unless I moved to the desert southwest and focused the light that isn't the case. Here around DC we have blue skies in the mornings often, but as we watch the jet trails widen across the sky we are likely to have no sun in the afternoons.

Back to being selfish and its benefits. I wish my kids to focus on being selfish for the next ten or more years, getting the education or skills required so they can be constructive, productive members of society. Maybe they'll turn out to be teachers, or statesmen or inventors and be part of the solution we are talkng about. But without being selfish now, they won't be able to achieve as much for humanity later.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by wil

Back to being selfish and its benefits. I wish my kids to focus on being selfish for the next ten or more years, getting the education or skills required so they can be constructive, productive members of society. Maybe they'll turn out to be teachers, or statesmen or inventors and be part of the solution we are talking about. But without being selfish now, they won't be able to achieve as much for humanity later.

Without this component that wil describes, where would the concept of "Do onto others as you would have others do onto you" be? Wouldn't the lack of this component render the concept meaningless?

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Does everyone remember Ayn Rand's Anthem?

Yes.

A question that should be posed is: Why do the institutions of power, that is the church, the government, the education system, want me to be buy into this selflessness stuff? What do they gain from having us all think that we should never insist on our own interest first?

Chris

[wil]

I've got to reread Anthem, its been decades, I seem to remember it being like 1984 of sorts??

I may have mentioned this before. A friend of mines mother in law (she is Hindu and from India) once told me we should spend the first fifty years of our life gaining, getting, learning, having kids and careers. And the last fifty years of our life giving, no more work, no more gaining, just giving. Whether that is some sort of missionary work, or being the grandparent that babysits all the grandkids or whatever...

I need to talk to her again and nail this down...as I'm over fifty and as soon as I get my kids off to school (I started late) I'm ready to move on and give.

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Pathless

Wow. Nice use of sarcasm and distortion to undermine an argument.

Did I say anything that was NOT a fact?

A number of moralistic arguments presented on this thread have holes and misguided distortions in them. Whether it is the sun or the sun stored in a fossil fuel... energy is energy. The fact that you oppose is this: To do anything good... to be good... requires using energy. The other fact that you might oppose is this: everything including the earth and the sun has a shelf life.

[wil]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Did I say anything that was NOT a fact?

A number of moralistic arguments presented on this thread have holes and misguided distortions in them. Whether it is the sun or the sun stored in a fossil fuel... energy is energy. The fact that you oppose is this: To do anything good... to be good... requires using energy. The other fact that you might oppose is this: everything including the earth and the sun has a shelf life.

Yes the sun has a shelf life, but no using it does not deplete it. Of course there are court cases where someone has planted trees or built a building and blocked the sun's rays (light or warmth) to crops, solar cells, greenhouses, etc.

So be selfish about the sun, take in as much as you can as often as you can utilize it in any way that you can, it won't harm a thing, just don't block anyone else's use of same.