Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[Thunderbrd]

A bunch of things:
first, let me express my continued appreciation for this mod. I just started playing a game again after a long while and made it all the way through to the Information Age; this game is awesome. With this in mind, here are some things I noticed (playing v38.5 on a giant map).

- AI doesn't some things that would seem simple, such as disbanding or upgrading old units (150+ battering rams in industrial era). Another thing is breaking out of pockets or using surrounding and destroy when attacking. (A stack with 150 skirmishers and 200 trebuchets that could have taken down any of my cities was stopped by putting a bunch of bowmen in its path - the AI would not attack them. It seems that each individual battle against the bowmen entrenched in forests and hills would have seem a loss to the AI, even though a few attacks in a row could have easily overpowered them. That is, the AI should be able to sacrifice a few units if it has overwhelming numbers. It knows how to do that when attacking a city, but it seems not to know it when it's pathing to that city or when surrounded. The AI also never seems to use generals in its dooms tacks, although it sends out plenty of generals with only a single unit to protect them. Generals though are some of the most powerful units in the game.)
- Skilled Workers Only immigration seems incredibly powerful with its 100% production bonus from trade routes. Building all the trade buildings increased my capital's production output from 3000/turn to 12000. With 200 cities on the map, there are always enough trading partners (playing on giant map, deity.)
- Mine warfare units are still not implemented. These would be more important if the AI was more aggressive attacking (and succeeding) with massed stacks. But cool anyway.
- Diplomacy trading: it's too easy to trade a useless outdated tech away in exchange for a massive army of siege and police units and ships. This in effect makes it unnecessary for me to seriously put any resources into the military.
- The ability to put cities in the ocean would be awesome! Maybe the ocean floor map and resources could be revealed with the right tech. As long as there are not enough maps for space colonization yet, this would keep the game going in the information/nanotech era.
- Maps for space colonization: eagerly awaited. I know it's technically difficult, but I would love to see a "Test of Time" solution with switching between maps.
- Also, some maps and scripts for starting the game on the Moon, Mars, etc would be a great way to get to play with the new buildings and units.
- Although I played with "Peace among NPCs" and "Raging Barbarians", (but without barbarian civs), barbarians were somehow never a challenge -- no massed raids, no barbarian invasions.
- There seem to be fewer events in my current game, although some quests and key events (such as free power) still trigger.
- I have the dreaded "crime" and "disease" stats under control easily, on a deity level game. This is part due to the negative score they can accumulate over a long time. It would be much more interesting, if the score could not go below 0; this way any excess policing would be lost, and any growth or tech change would create new challenges. A certain persistent low level of crime and disease would add an interesting flavor to the game.

Thank you again for an amazing mod!

Thanks for the feedback. The AI issues are noted. Ocean cities is just an effort we've never dedicated enough time to so as to get them going but some of the recent design developments were intended to help make this possible. Much of what you point to are many years long projects to undertake and perhaps at some point, after a long break, I may return to push again to achieve some of this stuff.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sorry, but if you replace "universe" in that sentence with anything else, you can see that that makes no sense. In the end, you are saying that you are both right and wrong - at the same time.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The right of things to exist is the fact that they actually don't. All is in a state of paradox. Everything is possible because nothing is possible. What you say doesn't make sense is true that it doesn't make sense and that is precisely WHY it makes sense. This all is because it cannot be but also because not existing cannot be as well.

People spend money to get healthy, if they can. There are so many ways that your ability to live your life is lessened if you are sick that most people would see their health as a very high priority - after all, you cannot eat your money, you cannot drive your money, and burning your money for the heat isn't a good return on your investment, either. Money you don't intend to spend is lost to you, but you can choose how to spend it. There is very little you benefit more from than health.

Sure but paying a 'fine for being healthy' would be one of the greatest of crimes against humanity in that it really enforces the view that it should be illegal to be poor and that those who have not found a way to monetize their value to society should just go ahead and die. And what would you then suggest is the punishment for running out of money to pay the fees for being perfectly fine?

Third, you should want to point the desires of the people around you in the same direction where your desires are. The more you do that, the less you need to watch what the others are doing. And while health was not the default state, we might reach a point in the future when diseases are indeed a thing of the past - as long as that doesn't mean that the researchers have to destroy their livelihood with that development. Since that outcome would be the best thing for humanity, we must find a way to make it the best thing for those researchers as well. This isn't even about fairness - this is about making such a future possible in the first place.

Agreed, which is why a public health care system is the only answer to this problem. It is the only system that would put the well being of the people and actual health as the priority. Any profit based solution makes earning $ the priority and to be charged for being healthy would be a terribly oppressive system.

Regulation means a third party invades a negotiation and tells both sides what's good for them. A free society can - mostly - avoid that (disregarding the criminal code) by trying to find ways how both sides can benefit. A lot of ways how such agreements could become harmful to one side are already ruled out by the criminal code (see above, especially my reasoning why fraud wouldn't run rampant), which is not regulation simply because it is a negative list (which allows people to be creative, not to mention that a negative list can never forbid as many things as a positive list).

Third parties are often entirely necessary for a negotiation to succeed. Try denying that fact to a recently divorced couple in 90% of cases there. Humans are incapable of being selfless enough to find a universally acceptable solution if it means it's less beneficial for themselves in most cases. This varies a lot by the person but it also tends to be that the more power and wealth one has, the less capable they are of selfless negotiation.

For that to be - literally - true, there would need to be a zero-point where you are naturally pushed away from. Otherwise, wealth could still beget wealth, but poverty is not "an opposing force" but just the absence of wealth. The economy is not a zero-sum-game (especially if you take technological progress into account - that's why this question is a thing: https://waitbutwhy.com/table/1700s-monarch-vs-modern-person), so nobody has to get poorer for someone to get richer (just invent cold fusion, and you will quickly get a few trillion $ while the lack of an energy crisis will, on average, increase the wealth of your fellow humans).

Can we agree that society is an artificial construct? What state of living would anyone have without it? There is certainly something about a "right to survive", but we are earning it from nature by living in a society that we didn't create. We benefit from what our ancestors did, and have a much better life than anyone did a few millennia ago. Compared to the stone age we are the "nobility of time" and compared to people living in the Sahel zone we are the "nobility of place", and we didn't do anything to belong to either group - anymore than a French noble before 1789 or a rich kid of today did to have those parents. You need to blend out a big part of humanity to consider anyone living in the Western world as poor, and it's a bit like a "regular" billionaire pointing to Zuckerberg or Gates and saying that he isn't all that rich. How do you think it would look to someone from a really poor part of the world or perhaps to an English serf from 1300 to see someone from a modern western country calling him-/herself poor?

Poverty is indeed an opposing force that pulls one further towards it. When you start making less than your needs, you will end up with greater and greater debts at higher and higher interest rates at stronger penalties for lack of payment. I guess where you are they don't have payday loans and title loans and higher interest rates for lenders with lower credit scores? An absolute 0 capacity to invest means you cannot take advantage of opportunities that abound for those who have the wealth to spare and it also means you have zero chance of succeeding in a business venture because you don't have the overhead to start one and since you cannot show the ability to invest into your own concept, you'll miss out on the ability to convince anyone else to as well. Your trustworthiness as a lender is your ability to prove you can pay and when everything appears to prove you CAN'T then what are you supposed to do? You work your ass off for someone else as your pay never, or rarely, goes up but the cost of living continues to skyrocket.

There is a point in diving where you are as heavy as you are light due to the increased density of the water pressure. If you go lower you sink without effort and if you go higher you gradually rise without effort. You can also go far enough below that point that you cannot put in enough effort to keep from falling further down. Perhaps the 'poverty' in the west rarely lets people fall THAT far, but most people certainly are struggling to get up to that zero point and the extremely wealthy are bobbing along on the surface while some are floating up into orbit with the slightest of gestures of investment.

No, an economy isn't a zero sum game - over time. But at any given point in time there is a limited amount of wealth to a limited amount of people and the placement of that absolute zero depth in an economic sense is somewhere around the average income, which is astronomically high in the US thanks to the very few who make unthinkable amounts annually. The overall wealth in this nation is incredible and yet the majority are living much as if they were in a 3rd world country, with many incapable of making enough money to compensate the basic costs of being alive and yet slavery is not an option. So they live with family and without health care and often without transportation to go get a job in a market that's so demanding it's extremely intimidating. Some cannot emotionally handle the stress and just give up and live a pathetic existence on wellfare, usually being a burden on those who have found some small way to get by responsibly. How can you just invent a new industry when you have no resources to work with and if you did you'd rapidly have it stolen from you?

 

[tmv]

There are individuals in the West living below the UN poverty line. A value that is set based on the world not a country. The poverty line in any country is based on the richness of that country.

As an example of the disparity of what poor means, take me. I am a pensioner in Australia. My income puts me in the bottom 20% of Australians, but I am by no means poor. If I wanted to I could afford a trip to Europe every three years for 3-6 months! I have friends who do so, every year, Europe or US/Canada for 3-4 months at a time. (It is cheaper for two to travel together than it is for one alone. Most places charge for two even when there is only one.)

Having said that there are people in the lowest 10% of Australians by income who are living below the UN poverty line.

Alright, what I said was a bit extreme. I also didn't mean Haiti which is the poorest western country, although we still need to keep in mind just how poor certain regions in the world are (and how insanely poor the entire world 300 years ago would have looked to us today). The UN poverty line ($ 1.90 / day) is at least a much better indicator than certain national definitions that pay too much attention IMO to the average level (if people like Zuckerberg or Gates were insane enough to move to Germany, we would probably have more than a million additional "poor people" according to our definition - that doesn't make sense). The UN itself gives a better "definition" on https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/poverty/ :

Poverty is more than the lack of income and resources to ensure a sustainable livelihood. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making.

This is what I would consider extreme poverty, and this must be dealt with. The average level doesn't tell you all that much, and you can easily get a situation where nobody gets their lifestyle reduced, but the number of poor people increases (like in the example I gave).

The minarchists (as you call them) in the US have this hidden message: "government exists to look after us (the upper middle) - all others can die slowly provided they keep maintaining our standard of living".

When you say something like this, it makes me wonder whether 'minarchy' is the same over there. Are you saying that we are not allowed to call inequity a problem until the historical and global depths of poverty have been plumbed? I hope not, but then where are you going with this?

For starters, I'm not really sure about that claim you make (regarding minarchists in the US). As far as I am aware, minarchists would consider any such intervention as a problem, no matter which class benefits. And inequity can be a problem, but it doesn't deserve the amount of attention it is given - instead we should look more at absolute levels of poverty. And the reminder about historical and global levels was about the fact that we didn't choose the time and place we live in, just like people who get born to millionaires. We can come dangerously close to a double standard if we consider their wealth un-earned (they will just inherit what their ancestors - hopefully legally - earned), and don't even think about the billions and billions of people who have been worse off than we are, and who didn't get to choose their parents either. We cannot change the past, but past people would shake their heads at our envy, just like you would certainly not understand a millionaire loudly regretting his "poverty" when compared to Zuckerberg.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The right of things to exist is the fact that they actually don't. All is in a state of paradox. Everything is possible because nothing is possible. What you say doesn't make sense is true that it doesn't make sense and that is precisely WHY it makes sense. This all is because it cannot be but also because not existing cannot be as well.

How much worth is a compass that can point in any direction? How will you ever know if your convictions are true if you deny basic logic (and by extension the Scientific Method)? If you jump from a mountain, can you both float and fall (and later on imitate Schroedinger's Cat with being both alive and dead)? And why can you lead a successful life being convinced of "usual" logic?

Sure but paying a 'fine for being healthy' would be one of the greatest of crimes against humanity in that it really enforces the view that it should be illegal to be poor and that those who have not found a way to monetize their value to society should just go ahead and die. And what would you then suggest is the punishment for running out of money to pay the fees for being perfectly fine?

You wouldn't pay a fine for being healthy any more than you currently pay a fine for being sick (and that wouldn't be any better regarding crimes against humanity). You would be paying for an insurance, a doctor promises to "watch over your health", and whenever that "contract" is "breached", you cease to pay until the contract is in effect once more. The result would be a very strong motivation for the doctor to cure you (and to always look for ways to make sure you stay healthy). As opposed to a doctor who wouldn't mind you getting sick every once in a while so that (s)he can earn some money. If you cannot pay that money, you would simply revert to the model you seem to prefer.

Third parties are often entirely necessary for a negotiation to succeed. Try denying that fact to a recently divorced couple in 90% of cases there. Humans are incapable of being selfless enough to find a universally acceptable solution if it means it's less beneficial for themselves in most cases. This varies a lot by the person but it also tends to be that the more power and wealth one has, the less capable they are of selfless negotiation.

Strange - I think I've read somewhere that it's exactly the lawyers that urge people not to look for universally acceptable solution, but to go to court (and the lawyers can earn a lot more money that way, but surely that's just coincidence, right?).

Poverty is indeed an opposing force that pulls one further towards it. When you start making less than your needs, you will end up with greater and greater debts at higher and higher interest rates at stronger penalties for lack of payment. I guess where you are they don't have payday loans and title loans and higher interest rates for lenders with lower credit scores? An absolute 0 capacity to invest means you cannot take advantage of opportunities that abound for those who have the wealth to spare and it also means you have zero chance of succeeding in a business venture because you don't have the overhead to start one and since you cannot show the ability to invest into your own concept, you'll miss out on the ability to convince anyone else to as well. Your trustworthiness as a lender is your ability to prove you can pay and when everything appears to prove you CAN'T then what are you supposed to do? You work your ass off for someone else as your pay never, or rarely, goes up but the cost of living continues to skyrocket.

But are your needs connected to what your neighbours have? That would indeed connect the poverty line to average income. Otherwise (if your needs are set at an absolute level) the poverty line should be independent of the average line. There are certainly needs that have to be met, but as long as you are still above the absolute line it could be that it's your needs that must adapt. Of course, there is inflation to take into account. Which would not exist in a free market at nearly the level we are used to (the 19th century is sometimes considered a time when free markets still existed, and it might interest you that 1 $ in 1800 was pretty much exactly 1 $ in 1900 - that doesn't rule out fluctuations in the meantime, of course).

There is a point in diving where you are as heavy as you are light due to the increased density of the water pressure. If you go lower you sink without effort and if you go higher you gradually rise without effort. You can also go far enough below that point that you cannot put in enough effort to keep from falling further down. Perhaps the 'poverty' in the west rarely lets people fall THAT far, but most people certainly are struggling to get up to that zero point and the extremely wealthy are bobbing along on the surface while some are floating up into orbit with the slightest of gestures of investment.

That would be true if your needs were as fixed as your weight (at least in a moment of time) is. There is a reason why people who win the lottery often end up pretty much broke a couple of years later - their needs grew quicker than the lottery gain could pay for them.

No, an economy isn't a zero sum game - over time. But at any given point in time there is a limited amount of wealth to a limited amount of people and the placement of that absolute zero depth in an economic sense is somewhere around the average income, which is astronomically high in the US thanks to the very few who make unthinkable amounts annually. The overall wealth in this nation is incredible and yet the majority are living much as if they were in a 3rd world country, with many incapable of making enough money to compensate the basic costs of being alive and yet slavery is not an option. So they live with family and without health care and often without transportation to go get a job in a market that's so demanding it's extremely intimidating. Some cannot emotionally handle the stress and just give up and live a pathetic existence on wellfare, usually being a burden on those who have found some small way to get by responsibly. How can you just invent a new industry when you have no resources to work with and if you did you'd rapidly have it stolen from you?

Even in a very short amount of time the economy as a whole can go down a lot. Warfare, economic or natural disasters can wipe out an entire economy in a very short amount of time (and you cannot really put these three in any kind of order - "natural disaster" could go up to an asteroid impact). And I'd be curious about your reasoning regarding the average income (which is indeed very high in the US - the average household income in 2016 was 73,298 $ [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money.../average-american-household-income/93002252/], as compared to the - much more used - median income at 59,039 $ in the same year [https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189]).

Since I consider infrastructure as part of the minimum state, transportation should be far less of a problem than it is today (much higher part of the annual budget). A reduced inflation is much more important for the poor than for the rich (who have a large part of their assets invested somewhere). The form of health care I mentioned above could replace health insurance without anyone suffering for it - other than perhaps the insurance companies. There are many ways to have the poor get a better life, because the current system is in many ways far worse for them than a free market ever would be.

 

[Yudishtira]

We can come dangerously close to a double standard if we consider their wealth un-earned (they will just inherit what their ancestors - hopefully legally - earned), and don't even think about the billions and billions of people who have been worse off than we are, and who didn't get to choose their parents either. We cannot change the past, but past people would shake their heads at our envy, just like you would certainly not understand a millionaire loudly regretting his "poverty" when compared to Zuckerberg.

Envy's got nothing to do with it. Inductive reasoning shows me that no-one above a certain level of wealth (I won't quibble but I estimate it is currently in the range $US1-10mil) has earned the excess, and all have in fact stolen it. I don't care if I don't get a cent in the redistribution. (Obviously no-one from past eras is going to be helped either, and your insistence on using them as some sort of excuse for obscene wealth just digs your hole deeper). If all the money goes to Haiti, or Bangladesh, I don't mind. Provided there is enough regulation (quite a lot of regulation as you can imagine) to ensure that the right people (the poor ones) there get it (and the obscenely rich Bangladeshis and Haitiens who share in causing the problem are similarly brought to justice).

 

[Yudishtira]

Would it be possible to write a new basic "game", consisting of maps for all possible offworld locations, and with the ability to 'populate' them with 'clones' of C2C units (and cities/bases and improvements)?

Couldn't you then call this "game" like a Python popup, passing it the parameters of the offworld location you wanted to access?

Also, since it's a new module, couldn't you write it in any language you like, rather than being limited to C and Python?

Disappointing. I was expecting a torrent of ridicule at the very least.

Where should I repost this to get the response it so richly deserves?

 

[Thunderbrd]

How much worth is a compass that can point in any direction?

All things are relative. The entirety of existence is just an illusion, albeit it runs on a powerful set of 'usual' rules of cause and effect. The truly enlightened being understands this to the core and understands how to manipulate that illusion to their whim. Even those of us who have no clue will eventually see how much their experiences have all been a reflection of our inner selves. This is pure imagination, this world. It operates logically because we want it to. There's no point to it if it doesn't - it'd be like playing a board game without dice and just choosing where you move to whenever you like and taking turns in whatever order you figure you want to take a turn in.

How will you ever know if your convictions are true if you deny basic logic (and by extension the Scientific Method)?

It's not a denial of basic logic, it's ... an understanding of the role of logic not being absolute. And yet it IS the ultimate expression of logic as well. The paradox CAN be understood.

If you jump from a mountain, can you both float and fall (and later on imitate Schroedinger's Cat with being both alive and dead)?

You'll follow the rules established for that part of the game, which is generally to fall unless you have an explainable reason as to why you don't.

And why can you lead a successful life being convinced of "usual" logic?

It actually helps to understand why you consent to the limitations in your life and existence. But remember that when we were born, it was all unexpected that cause and effect would be so... solid and at times painful.

You wouldn't pay a fine for being healthy any more than you currently pay a fine for being sick (and that wouldn't be any better regarding crimes against humanity). You would be paying for an insurance, a doctor promises to "watch over your health", and whenever that "contract" is "breached", you cease to pay until the contract is in effect once more. The result would be a very strong motivation for the doctor to cure you (and to always look for ways to make sure you stay healthy). As opposed to a doctor who wouldn't mind you getting sick every once in a while so that (s)he can earn some money. If you cannot pay that money, you would simply revert to the model you seem to prefer.

What would set the price? Basically this is individual insurance agreements with a particular provider. I like that idea - might work - might fail completely since people aren't motivated to pay until they have a problem.

Strange - I think I've read somewhere that it's exactly the lawyers that urge people not to look for universally acceptable solution, but to go to court (and the lawyers can earn a lot more money that way, but surely that's just coincidence, right?).

Sure it is. Lawyers aren't unbiased 3rd party actors but are paid strategists and negotiators taking an extremely biased side of the client (and trying to get as much out of it for themselves in the process.) So I'm not sure what your point is. A 3rd party in such a localized example would be the judge. And judges generally don't make suggestions to either council unless they do have personal emotional bias, which they generally strive to be above.

But are your needs connected to what your neighbours have?

Sure they are - kinda. The needs aren't but the cost of them is. If some can easily afford a particular service or resource that all need, they drive the price up for all. This is one big reason that there are up to 3000% markups on some drugs, because since many do have insurance, the price that can be covered appears nearly limitless. Of course that drives the price of insurance up across the board and more and more cannot afford the insurance that will cover that medication. So yes, what you can afford is very much linked to what your neighbors can.

That would be true if your needs were as fixed as your weight (at least in a moment of time) is. There is a reason why people who win the lottery often end up pretty much broke a couple of years later - their needs grew quicker than the lottery gain could pay for them.

At any given time your needs are just as fixed as your weight. The difference between need and want is a large gray area of course but would you consider having the excess income capable of taking part in further income generating opportunity (such as simply paying for transportation to get to a job) be a need or a luxury? Would having shelter be a need or a luxury? At what point do you actually draw the line between the two and expect citizens to be capable of providing for themselves even if they are in the lowest quadrant of earnings?

And I'd be curious about your reasoning regarding the average income

That's not really a direct enough question but perhaps I answered it above?

Since I consider infrastructure as part of the minimum state, transportation should be far less of a problem than it is today (much higher part of the annual budget).

So you do support at least that socialized program. In Mexico, of course, infrastructure is anything but a state program and is tolled every 10-20 miles or so to profit the investor who built the road. So what makes it better, in your mind, to socialize infrastructure when generally you have been arguing for nothing to be socialized?

A reduced inflation is much more important for the poor than for the rich (who have a large part of their assets invested somewhere).

TBH, it doesn't matter how much inflation there is provided that the income growth exceeds it. Somehow, ever since I entered the job market at $3.30/hr, the price of goods and services has risen much faster than the relative income. I'm in a much better job now but not doing much better than I could've done back then had I been making that minimum wage on a full time basis. I've lived in a number of states and the states where the income is by far the lowest and the employee is the least protected are the ones that are governed by right wing capitalists who believe in a totally free market status and protects the rights of the business owner far more than the rights of the employee.

The form of health care I mentioned above could replace health insurance without anyone suffering for it - other than perhaps the insurance companies.

Possibly, but here's a thought... a free market innovates and finds the best ways to operate, right? So why has this not been done, or if it has, has organically proven too unstable to survive already? Surely it's been done before, probably with smaller and more local models over time. It sounds like the kind of arrangements that doctors may have tried during the age of western expansion.

 

[tmv]

Envy's got nothing to do with it. Inductive reasoning shows me that no-one above a certain level of wealth (I won't quibble but I estimate it is currently in the range $US1-10mil) has earned the excess, and all have in fact stolen it. I don't care if I don't get a cent in the redistribution. (Obviously no-one from past eras is going to be helped either, and your insistence on using them as some sort of excuse for obscene wealth just digs your hole deeper). If all the money goes to Haiti, or Bangladesh, I don't mind. Provided there is enough regulation (quite a lot of regulation as you can imagine) to ensure that the right people (the poor ones) there get it (and the obscenely rich Bangladeshis and Haitiens who share in causing the problem are similarly brought to justice).

Sure envy got nothing to do with that. And perhaps there will even be enough regulation to ensure the relatives of the regulators get the money.

First of all there is no such thing as inductive reasoning - it's almost a contradiction. Second, if someone increases the assets of a business by several billion $ (like the original lead programmer of Word and Excel did for Microsoft), certainly they can get 1 % of that excess wealth for themselves? And the people from the past I mentioned to show that you, I and almost everyone in a developed country is obscenely rich - from the past's point of view. Today a middle-class (or even slightly below middle-class) person has a better life than royalty from 400 years ago (and back then royalty was powerful).

All things are relative. The entirety of existence is just an illusion, albeit it runs on a powerful set of 'usual' rules of cause and effect. The truly enlightened being understands this to the core and understands how to manipulate that illusion to their whim. Even those of us who have no clue will eventually see how much their experiences have all been a reflection of our inner selves. This is pure imagination, this world. It operates logically because we want it to. There's no point to it if it doesn't - it'd be like playing a board game without dice and just choosing where you move to whenever you like and taking turns in whatever order you figure you want to take a turn in.

I wonder how you would feel if you learned somehow later on that reality was - indeed - real. Wouldn't that be a surprise?

It's not a denial of basic logic, it's ... an understanding of the role of logic not being absolute. And yet it IS the ultimate expression of logic as well. The paradox CAN be understood.

Sorry, but there is nothing "outside" logic. Even if reality was an illusion. A computer game is something you can call an illusion, but it is still ruled by logic.

What would set the price? Basically this is individual insurance agreements with a particular provider. I like that idea - might work - might fail completely since people aren't motivated to pay until they have a problem.

What does set prices in a market? Supply and demand (first and foremost). Of course that isn't a system that's already hammered down (some aspects would need to be taken care of, like elders or chronically sick people having to change the doctor for whatever reason), but I think the potential would be great. Short "paths of decisions", an actual expert judging what is effective, the doctor having a strong incentive to actually cure people, etc.

Sure it is. Lawyers aren't unbiased 3rd party actors but are paid strategists and negotiators taking an extremely biased side of the client (and trying to get as much out of it for themselves in the process.) So I'm not sure what your point is. A 3rd party in such a localized example would be the judge. And judges generally don't make suggestions to either council unless they do have personal emotional bias, which they generally strive to be above.

The lawyer who talks their client out of an agreement to get a verdict in court can be considered a 3rd party. And if they only do that in order to charge more money they are not taking care of their client's needs.

If some can easily afford a particular service or resource that all need, they drive the price up for all.

Not always. At first prices usually go down with more items sold, because R&D costs are being paid for. And if the business can reliably sell more items, they can purchase more raw goods, usually for less money per (kg or liter or item or whatever).

This is one big reason that there are up to 3000% markups on some drugs, because since many do have insurance, the price that can be covered appears nearly limitless.

One reason for that might be that non-experts ultimately decide about covering costs - see above.

At any given time your needs are just as fixed as your weight. The difference between need and want is a large gray area of course but would you consider having the excess income capable of taking part in further income generating opportunity (such as simply paying for transportation to get to a job) be a need or a luxury? Would having shelter be a need or a luxury? At what point do you actually draw the line between the two and expect citizens to be capable of providing for themselves even if they are in the lowest quadrant of earnings?

Let me put it this way: Having shelter is a need, but if this "shelter" is something like Buckingham Palace it is not a need. Many categories of needs cover examples from very basic to absolutely ridiculous, and if you suddenly have more money than before, you might - perhaps unwisely - decide you want this need covered by something higher-ranked.

So you do support at least that socialized program. In Mexico, of course, infrastructure is anything but a state program and is tolled every 10-20 miles or so to profit the investor who built the road. So what makes it better, in your mind, to socialize infrastructure when generally you have been arguing for nothing to be socialized?

I have already said that I am not an anarchist. Infrastructure is special because there is very little way for competition, unless you want to build the exact same road half a dozen times aside from each other. When competition is completely removed, you lose one of the main advantages of the market. Sure the government still has problems covering that area (as seen in both of our countries), but there is very little choice but to have infrastructure public (the services provided on that infrastructure are, of course, a different thing - there is no need to nationalize trucks). And to get it out of the way, I am also for inner and outer security (police, military), the courts, diplomacy and the currency as part of the public sector. Security because of those reasons I have already given in previous posts, and currency to avoid going back to a barter-like system, where you first have to find out which particular currency the supplier accepts. So you could say that I am for the "burden of proof" being on the public sector.

believe in a totally free market status and protects the rights of the business owner far more than the rights of the employee

That's a contradiction. Free market means being equal under the law. I know that these "corporatists" claim to believe in a free market, but I think they would be the first to complain if it was restored (if such a thing ever really existed).

a free market innovates and finds the best ways to operate, right? So why has this not been done, or if it has, has organically proven too unstable to survive already?

Again: There is no free market in the USA. Even if it once existed, it was abolished by FDR at the latest. If the system is ruled by corporations, lobbies, associations and other gangs, of course they wouldn't like something to empower the individual.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The "buildings must cost the value decreed by the column the tech that allows them" mantra has thrown out more than half of the work I did on getting the Early Religions to work with the Prehistoric Era. Those religions are now completely broken.

However I think I may be able to save them but it may mean

• putting the buildings onto techs that have nothing to do with the building or religion just the cost of the building.
• Or I could have them available from the start and just require the religion and give them what ever cost I like.
• Or I may just possibly find a suitable set of techs where I can do something similar to the other religions.
• Or a combination.

 

[raxo2222]

The "buildings must cost the value decreed by the column the tech that allows them" mantra has thrown out more than half of the work I did on getting the Early Religions to work with the Prehistoric Era. Those religions are now completely broken.

However I think I may be able to save them but it may mean

• putting the buildings onto techs that have nothing to do with the building or religion just the cost of the building.
• Or I could have them available from the start and just require the religion and give them what ever cost I like.
• Or I may just possibly find a suitable set of techs where I can do something similar to the other religions.
• Or a combination.

Feel free to override costs.
For example culture wonders aren't recosted, and buildings, that require castle have 1/2x multiplier (torture stuff has even smaller multipliers).

I'm fine with making all/most religious buildings require only religion.
There is temple/monastery/cathedral type buildings, that are always connected to Meditation, Musical Notation and some other tech.

 

[Yudishtira]

And perhaps there will even be enough regulation to ensure the relatives of the regulators get the money.

Haha. All regulators are corrupt, whereas all unregulated billionaire individuals and corporations are paragons of virtue.

I leave you to your hole.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I wonder how you would feel if you learned somehow later on that reality was - indeed - real. Wouldn't that be a surprise?

Well, it is. Functionally. We cannot ignore its reality or we will quite likely perish quickly. The trick is to understand that it's real because we want it to be. The power of raw spirit 'thought' is supreme. I really can't explain this in full - the Taoists agree, saying one cannot explain the Tao, only know it. This isn't theory to me now. Once you 'get it', there's no other answer to the nature of reality.

Sorry, but there is nothing "outside" logic. Even if reality was an illusion. A computer game is something you can call an illusion, but it is still ruled by logic.

Outside of logic is that which is outside the rational. You dream and experience irrationality in cause and effect. Not all existence demands adherence to cause and effect.

The lawyer who talks their client out of an agreement to get a verdict in court can be considered a 3rd party. And if they only do that in order to charge more money they are not taking care of their client's needs.

In a technical sense, sure, but not in a bias sense. A party is a team with an agenda. Put a lawyer in the mix and he's on one of the 'teams with an agenda', not a middle ground looking for the best fairness for all.

Let me put it this way: Having shelter is a need, but if this "shelter" is something like Buckingham Palace it is not a need. Many categories of needs cover examples from very basic to absolutely ridiculous, and if you suddenly have more money than before, you might - perhaps unwisely - decide you want this need covered by something higher-ranked.

Sure but if you gave a US citizen the average global wage, they would have nowhere to live at all except a cardboard box. There's only so low one can go before they have nothing. So trying to compare to the global average wage is ludicrous because in places where you make less money, obviously the services are also a hell of a lot cheaper and though they may be lower quality in general (debatable based on previous points I'm not really wanting to argue over) and possibly even so low they are extremely unhealthy to utilize, they are at least accessible at this below minimum standards degree. AKA, you wouldn't find it illegal to pitch a tent in some nations where there are specific tent cities for the majority poor to live in. We actually do make it illegal to be broke here, in numerous ways, not the least of which an actual law against walking in public without any money.

When competition is completely removed, you lose one of the main advantages of the market.

Very true. And how equal to this problem is it when businesses negotiate a block and fix the prices between them at much more expensive than they really should be because the price of buying in to compete is prohibitive and those unwilling to play will get quickly priced out by these established competitors that nose dive the profit margin to complete unprofitability just to put the newcomer out of play, then hike back up when only the 'in-companies' are left? This is effectively a form of Monopoly and it's taking place in numerous industries here, not to mention the dividing up of zones where only one company can offer service, creating local monopolies all over the place (such as the cable companies do here.) How many competitors can keep investing to start businesses in these environments only to be quickly squashed like a bug and forced to take massive losses just for trying?

Free market means being equal under the law.

What's equal? The rights of one business vs another? OR the rights of business owners vs employees? By protecting the rights of the business owner, we mean we allow them to fire people without cause, pay whatever they want down to an abysmal minimum wage (for the cost of living) and grant no benefits if they wish (though they may be motivated by tax laws to do so which I suppose is yet another regulation to do away with.) No retirement plans, no insurance for if you've worked there for a long time and get laid off, no paid time off - hell in some cases no days off at all for months on end. The federal laws end up being the only protections for employees in these states at all and if there were no minimum wage, you could be sure most people would be paid as if they were outsourcing to Taiwan. Sure, we'd have all the jobs back but everyone would be poor af. Which we pretty much already are with the minimal federal laws protecting us that we have.

Again: There is no free market in the USA. Even if it once existed, it was abolished by FDR at the latest. If the system is ruled by corporations, lobbies, associations and other gangs, of course they wouldn't like something to empower the individual.

Understand that there's no free market in the USA BECAUSE DUE to free market, corporations, lobbies, associations and other gangs have taken over and twisted the system because they were allowed to become too powerful and they then proceeded to corrupt the system. And they continue to more and more all the time.

 

[tmv]

Haha. All regulators are corrupt, whereas all unregulated billionaire individuals and corporations are paragons of virtue.

I leave you to your hole.

Strawman. I didn't make any claim about the morality of anyone. You OTOH need the regulators to be "paragons of virtue", because their power by far exceeds that of any individual (they wield the entire power of their country). You also made a claim about all billionaires being thieves. To deny that, I don't need to make any claim about all billionaires - a single one will do. Maybe I picked an unusual case, but that's alright to deny a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_quantification - and you continue to make that kind of statement. No, not all regulators are corrupt, but there are corrupt regulators. No, not all billionaires are paragons of virtue, but it's completely possible to be a morally upstanding billionaire, which is already enough in order to not be a thief.

Well, it is. Functionally. We cannot ignore its reality or we will quite likely perish quickly. The trick is to understand that it's real because we want it to be. The power of raw spirit 'thought' is supreme. I really can't explain this in full - the Taoists agree, saying one cannot explain the Tao, only know it. This isn't theory to me now. Once you 'get it', there's no other answer to the nature of reality.

Sorry, but that is too strong as a statement, even with the Taoists' support. With no "real" support, our understanding is limited by our brain.

Besides, there is great danger with the "one cannot explain" (when it comes to morality, at least). An elaboration about the dangers of "Tao morality" is here: http://www.friesian.com/divebomb.htm

Outside of logic is that which is outside the rational. You dream and experience irrationality in cause and effect. Not all existence demands adherence to cause and effect.

Dreams as a form of existence? The neurons firing that creates this "existence" certainly takes place in "our world".

In a technical sense, sure, but not in a bias sense. A party is a team with an agenda. Put a lawyer in the mix and he's on one of the 'teams with an agenda', not a middle ground looking for the best fairness for all.

Take a divorce lawyer. If the two parties wanted to separate on peaceful (or even friendly) terms, they could certainly use the same lawyer, but no lawyer would ever recommend that.

Sure but if you gave a US citizen the average global wage, they would have nowhere to live at all except a cardboard box. There's only so low one can go before they have nothing. So trying to compare to the global average wage is ludicrous because in places where you make less money, obviously the services are also a hell of a lot cheaper and though they may be lower quality in general (debatable based on previous points I'm not really wanting to argue over) and possibly even so low they are extremely unhealthy to utilize, they are at least accessible at this below minimum standards degree. AKA, you wouldn't find it illegal to pitch a tent in some nations where there are specific tent cities for the majority poor to live in. We actually do make it illegal to be broke here, in numerous ways, not the least of which an actual law against walking in public without any money.

Alright. First of all making any level of wealth (or lack thereof) illegal is already a sign that this is not at all a free market. Another sign are these regulations about e.g. tents. Second, without the inflation you could get by with seemingly very little money. 1 $ in 1900 is 30.02 $ in 2018 according to http://www.in2013dollars.com/1900-dollars-in-2018?amount=1 - this is the currency value from when there still was a free market. Having (next to) no inflation means you can save money (if you somehow manage not to overspend) and keep its value even without risky investments. With no inflation, even keeping cash becomes an option. If your hands are not tied by overzealous laws, you have much more opportunity to make a living as long as you have good ideas. Yes, there are still problems, but it seems to me you think that you would keep the drawbacks of the current system.

Very true. And how equal to this problem is it when businesses negotiate a block and fix the prices between them at much more expensive than they really should be because the price of buying in to compete is prohibitive and those unwilling to play will get quickly priced out by these established competitors that nose dive the profit margin to complete unprofitability just to put the newcomer out of play, then hike back up when only the 'in-companies' are left? This is effectively a form of Monopoly and it's taking place in numerous industries here, not to mention the dividing up of zones where only one company can offer service, creating local monopolies all over the place (such as the cable companies do here.) How many competitors can keep investing to start businesses in these environments only to be quickly squashed like a bug and forced to take massive losses just for trying?

Remove strict IP laws. That is exactly the problem that I think of when I criticize strong IP laws. That enables new competitors to emerge.

What's equal? The rights of one business vs another? OR the rights of business owners vs employees? By protecting the rights of the business owner, we mean we allow them to fire people without cause, pay whatever they want down to an abysmal minimum wage (for the cost of living) and grant no benefits if they wish (though they may be motivated by tax laws to do so which I suppose is yet another regulation to do away with.) No retirement plans, no insurance for if you've worked there for a long time and get laid off, no paid time off - hell in some cases no days off at all for months on end. The federal laws end up being the only protections for employees in these states at all and if there were no minimum wage, you could be sure most people would be paid as if they were outsourcing to Taiwan. Sure, we'd have all the jobs back but everyone would be poor af. Which we pretty much already are with the minimal federal laws protecting us that we have.

Every citizen is equal under the law, so that would be the second option. And what we really need is better education, so that there are better employees in western countries as opposed to, say, Taiwan. We cannot rely on constant oversight to get acceptable conditions, we need to reach a point where there is actual incentive to do what we consider to be the right thing. How do you want to stop these business owners? Close down all the borders and make transfer of money illegal? Make laying off employees illegal so that business owners that really go down on the market end up in jail? When you start such a way, you should know beforehand how far you would go to enforce those rules.

Understand that there's no free market in the USA BECAUSE DUE to free market, corporations, lobbies, associations and other gangs have taken over and twisted the system because they were allowed to become too powerful and they then proceeded to corrupt the system. And they continue to more and more all the time.

The free market in the USA was destroyed by politics - mostly by the New Deal. These "groups" have taken over - what? It's control of the government, isn't it? But you need a restricted economy for that to do anything.

 

[raxo2222]

@Dancing Hoskuld religious buildings can have tech requirement by proxy, that is they could have some building or resource requirements.
Some religious buildings were in main files.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sorry, but that is too strong as a statement, even with the Taoists' support. With no "real" support, our understanding is limited by our brain.

Besides, there is great danger with the "one cannot explain" (when it comes to morality, at least). An elaboration about the dangers of "Tao morality" is here: http://www.friesian.com/divebomb.htm

I tried to read this but the guy takes hours to make no point at all. I can't argue with your opinion except to say that until you see, you won't.

How can one explain color to someone who is blind and has never seen a color before?

Dreams as a form of existence? The neurons firing that creates this "existence" certainly takes place in "our world".

Existence IS a dream and dreams are not merely the results of neurons firing.

Take a divorce lawyer. If the two parties wanted to separate on peaceful (or even friendly) terms, they could certainly use the same lawyer, but no lawyer would ever recommend that.

Because lawyers aren't unbiased 3rd parties. That's not their job any more than it would be the job of a car salesperson to merely be a source of education on what car pros and cons there are to all vehicles.

Alright. First of all making any level of wealth (or lack thereof) illegal is already a sign that this is not at all a free market.

You don't make it illegal, you make taxation greater the more one makes so that there is an opposing force to the steamroll effect of gathering wealth, that there are diminished returns the more you make, and you don't allow for loopholes within loopholes to enable anyone to supercede this structure.

Another sign are these regulations about e.g. tents

Take even those away and that's where people will be forced to live by employers who really don't give a damn about anything but a bottom line.

Having (next to) no inflation means you can save money (if you somehow manage not to overspend) and keep its value even without risky investments.

This assumes you make enough to exceed your expenses. Otherwise I do get this point, that with heavy inflation, the more you save, the less your money is worth over time so you really lose value on your investment into savings over time and then can never get ahead through proper budgeting.

Remove strict IP laws. That is exactly the problem that I think of when I criticize strong IP laws. That enables new competitors to emerge.

It also makes it completely free for larger investors to steal whatever they see whenever they see it and outcompete through their established supply chains and proven best practices of bringing a product or service to market. I really don't think you'd find this would help at all, just ensure that there's no point in investing into the overhead of a new startup.

Every citizen is equal under the law, so that would be the second option.

That doesn't really answer to how you expect to protect employees from domineering and cost cutting employers.

And what we really need is better education, so that there are better employees in western countries as opposed to, say, Taiwan.

1) Not everyone would be intelligent enough to keep up in such a system, leading still to massive poverty among those who find themselves unable to absorb all the required education.
2) The education costs become prohibitive for anyone already struggling to keep up or they become crushing as debt afterwards, which we have that problem now.
3) So then you get to the point where highly educated and indebted personnel are making minimum wage because so many people can do the job - we have that problem in the piloting industry now where it takes 4-6 yrs to qualify for a part time minimum wage position that has the potential to eventually grow into something better if you win the staffing lottery at some point.

How do you want to stop these business owners? Close down all the borders and make transfer of money illegal? Make laying off employees illegal so that business owners that really go down on the market end up in jail? When you start such a way, you should know beforehand how far you would go to enforce those rules.

Successful countries regulate through stiff requirements into fairness practices, such as required amounts to set aside for employees for severance pay throughout the time they are employed, required amounts of PTO accrued per hours worked, etc... It's not jail so much as threat of fines that keeps things working for employers. This, however, is NOT a free market concept, so in general, free market usually just becomes a great place for employers to take full advantage of the cheapest possible labor where the laborer is not protected.

The free market in the USA was destroyed by politics - mostly by the New Deal. These "groups" have taken over - what? It's control of the government, isn't it? But you need a restricted economy for that to do anything.

I'm not sure why you think the economy must be in some way restricted for this to happen. Is there anything about a completely free market that keeps governmental officials from taking bribes and payoffs for policy decisions?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@Dancing Hoskuld religious buildings can have tech requirement by proxy, that is they could have some building or resource requirements.
Some religious buildings were in main files.

Only the original and RoM religions are in the main files and they need to be moved out into modules at some stage.

 

[tmv]

I tried to read this but the guy takes hours to make no point at all. I can't argue with your opinion except to say that until you see, you won't.

How can one explain color to someone who is blind and has never seen a color before?

It means pretty much that when you don't transfer knowledge, some other "knowledge" can take that part, and in the end the "original ideas" can completely disappear - a bit like a more extreme variant of the telephone game, since you are not allowed to say anything at all.

Existence IS a dream and dreams are not merely the results of neurons firing.

That's a claim, and I have not seen anything so far to support it. And if dreams are not "merely" the result of neurons firing, why is it possible to "guess" the dream someone had from watching an EEG of that person - with an accuracy around 90 % (https://singularityhub.com/2017/04/...-read-your-dreams-with-a-simple-brain-scan/)?

Because lawyers aren't unbiased 3rd parties. That's not their job any more than it would be the job of a car salesperson to merely be a source of education on what car pros and cons there are to all vehicles.

Two people want to get a divorce but also want to stay on friendly terms. Since they could get an agreement worked out by themselves with just an expert offering council, they could work out such an agreement with a single lawyer. In that case, the lawyer would be neutral. But the lawyer is not interested in such a solution and recommends going to court instead - with two different lawyers.

You don't make it illegal, you make taxation greater the more one makes so that there is an opposing force to the steamroll effect of gathering wealth, that there are diminished returns the more you make, and you don't allow for loopholes within loopholes to enable anyone to supercede this structure.

Please take a look again at your statement that I quoted where you spoke about current conditions in the USA. I answered that these conditions showed again that free market is not the current state of the US economy, because in a free market, no level of wealth would be illegal.

Take even those away and that's where people will be forced to live by employers who really don't give a damn about anything but a bottom line.

The problem is as follows: There is a wage level that certain employees would earn in a completely free market. It is not zero (because no one would agree to work for that), it might even be unknown to us (it might take a few up- and downswings until an equilibrium is reached), but it is there, and it looms in the background. Let's call it the market wage. If the wage for an employee was below the market wage, the employee would simply give notice and look somewhere else for a better wage, whereas the employer (and this is important) wouldn't get a new employee for such conditions again. This happens very rarely, unless in special cases (usually for highly qualified employees who are hard to replace). The usual case is the opposite: the employee earns more than the market wage, which means that all the pressure is on them (without protectice measures, they could never get such conditions again, whereas the employer can easily find new employees for these conditions).

The bitter fact is that the most important base for a market wage is replaceability. Can the employer easily find another candidate to fill your place? If so, that puts pressure on you (oversupply regarding the labor market). To get - or keep - the job you have to agree to conditions that other people might not agree to, so that you are - once again - irreplaceable. On the other hand, if the employer cannot (easily or at all) find another candidate, that puts pressure on him. Now you get to choose whom to work for, and they have to sweeten the deal. Ideally in the end a deal is reached where both sides cannot easily replace that deal with another for the same conditions.

Unfortunately, many people are (on the job market) incredibly replaceable. The market wage in these cases would be far below the minimum someone needs for a living. For very good reasons, society doesn't want that to happen - but you cannot just wish the above mechanics away. With a wage fixed far above the market wage level, you get far more people to do that work than otherwise. In fact, you get more people than the entire economy needs, leading to unemployment. That makes you - as such a worker - super replaceable, which is the foundation of the entire power differential you talk about.

So what could be done about that? Unfortunately, the higher you fix the wages and working conditions, the worse these effects get (and more and more people are willing to work for these conditions, leading to a further rising unemployment rate). Society can try to fight the symptoms as much as possible, but (and this is where I think socialists are mistaken the most) even society's power is finite, and so society cannot hope to win that fight in the end. And the fate of a society losing such a fight can be terrible (you can try to stem these effects for a while, by closing your borders, fixing prices and fighting the black market, all the while inflation "tries" to run away and your diplomacy is ruined because other nations don't like it when their businesses don't get access to your economy, your police officers constantly get bribe offers which you have to fight by raising the punishment, now some people try to get ahead by falsely blaming their competitors of accepting bribes, etc.) So, what can really be done? We don't want people to starve despite having a job. If we cannot allow the actual wage to decrease, we must find some way for the market wage to increase. And this is why I think the answer lies in improved education. Make use of the economy getting more and more specialized and have people get better education, all the while they become less replaceable because everyone (ideally) has a different focus in their education. With a raising tech level the demands of a job increase as well, which means the market wage rises as well. And now you have more people able to earn a living, without society exhausting itself with unenforceable ideals.

It also makes it completely free for larger investors to steal whatever they see whenever they see it and outcompete through their established supply chains and proven best practices of bringing a product or service to market. I really don't think you'd find this would help at all, just ensure that there's no point in investing into the overhead of a new startup.

There is a risk, but strict IP laws give all the advantage to the side with the best lawyers. With lessened IP laws, the other side at least has a fighting chance.

1) Not everyone would be intelligent enough to keep up in such a system, leading still to massive poverty among those who find themselves unable to absorb all the required education.
2) The education costs become prohibitive for anyone already struggling to keep up or they become crushing as debt afterwards, which we have that problem now.
3) So then you get to the point where highly educated and indebted personnel are making minimum wage because so many people can do the job - we have that problem in the piloting industry now where it takes 4-6 yrs to qualify for a part time minimum wage position that has the potential to eventually grow into something better if you win the staffing lottery at some point.

A few millennia ago being literate was considered a very high education, and certainly many people assumed that they were too dumb to learn how to read and write. Today, you learn these skills in elementary school. Who knows how easy other concepts could become, if we had superior skills and knowledge in pedagogy - perhaps together with better knowledge about the brain in general? I have already given my reasons why I think this would put people (highly?) above minimum wage, as long as we remember to differentiate those educations.

Is there anything about a completely free market that keeps governmental officials from taking bribes and payoffs for policy decisions?

Indeed there is. There is no reason to pay bribes when the government officials cannot interfere with the economy.

 

[Thunderbrd]

That's a claim, and I have not seen anything so far to support it. And if dreams are not "merely" the result of neurons firing, why is it possible to "guess" the dream someone had from watching an EEG of that person - with an accuracy around 90 %

Again, if you haven't had the experiences that explain it to you there's no way you'd know any reason to back that claim. I don't fault you for that. It's the kind of thing that not everyone discovers, especially difficult to find for those looking to base their entire worldview on empirical knowledge. I can't play the telephone game with you on this. It's something you come to understand or you don't. Doubt it all you wish and believe me I did as well until it was... experienced. I'm not going into what that was because the path to it and experience of it differs for all people. For some it is near death experiences, and many empirical minds are trying to prove how that too teaches nothing but misleading illusion. It does, I suppose, just as all knowledge is a form of equally misleading illusion of a sort.

The ability to guess someone's dreams may or may not have anything to do with neurons firing. I'm not denying that neurons fire during dreams. The brain functions as an interpreter for our conscious experience and of course it is attempting to interpret that experience to some degree even during sleep. What I have come to believe is that the brain is not the source of our identity but rather the thing that allows us to give definition to things and directs the limitations of our understanding. It's more of a filter and focus tool than a storage device. Our ability to consciously process things in conscious awareness certainly takes place there, and it's programming colors everything we go through for us and attaches presumptions, assumptions and all sorts of notions based on 'best guesses' from processed conclusions based on historical events and the way we interpreted them then. But it is not the end-all of what we are, nor even the ultimate seat of our identity. Some very interesting research has taken place recently to suggest knowledge and memories aren't even stored in the synapses of the gray matter but rather in an electromagnetic field like a cloud that surrounds us and the brain acts as a transmitter to and from. This cloud supposedly connects to all other clouds of identities and can help to understand telepathic experiences, which can also go a long ways towards explaining an uncanny ability to guess what others may be dreaming about.

Two people want to get a divorce but also want to stay on friendly terms. Since they could get an agreement worked out by themselves with just an expert offering council, they could work out such an agreement with a single lawyer. In that case, the lawyer would be neutral. But the lawyer is not interested in such a solution and recommends going to court instead - with two different lawyers.

So the lawyer's personal interest becomes a 3rd entity in the negotiation, again not an unbiased arbitrator. His reason to suggest such a solution would be?

Please take a look again at your statement that I quoted where you spoke about current conditions in the USA. I answered that these conditions showed again that free market is not the current state of the US economy, because in a free market, no level of wealth would be illegal.

So your defense of a free market is that there should be no limits established to the extent of the suffering poverty may cause? That the whole problem with our system is that we put laws in place that say it's illegal to live without homes and money and starve to death? I mean sure they pretty much just serve as another way to kick people when they are down but I'm not sure that taking away those laws is a solution for anything. Any more, it's not just about law but empowerment to succeed. There aren't many job opportunities left for those who have no access to internet, personal transportation, and especially a fixed home address. Even credit scores are being checked to make sure the potential employee is already in general a successful enough person to trust enough to hire. Again, success begets success and failure begets further failure. There's no avoiding that by taking away regulations because it's simply the natural way things are.

whereas the employer (and this is important) wouldn't get a new employee for such conditions again

Why not when there are always people desperate enough to be taken further advantage of just to get a foothold on their basic needs? As long as the resource of human labor exceeds demand, which it always does and is going to be a forever growing problem with increasing automation and AI development, we're never going to see the value of basic human labor become high enough for a person to support the costs of their lives with such employment and it will always be the majority of employment opportunity, with a smaller and smaller percentage needed for more advanced and thus more lucrative work, making employers consistently trend towards being more and more selective and thus the ever deepening of the success gap and widening of the chasm of access between the two groups. The buy-in costs of the education necessary to bridge that gap will become greater and greater and more and more risky that it might not even be enough to create the momentum to further succeed after the education is earned.

Unfortunately, many people are (on the job market) incredibly replaceable. The market wage in these cases would be far below the minimum someone needs for a living. For very good reasons, society doesn't want that to happen - but you cannot just wish the above mechanics away. With a wage fixed far above the market wage level, you get far more people to do that work than otherwise. In fact, you get more people than the entire economy needs, leading to unemployment. That makes you - as such a worker - super replaceable, which is the foundation of the entire power differential you talk about.

Ok, I follow all that and I'd say we agree on some of the source of the problem. You ask what we can do about that and I think it's not really an avoidable fact which is the sum total reason that a completely free market system is doomed to fail.

And this is why I think the answer lies in improved education. Make use of the economy getting more and more specialized and have people get better education, all the while they become less replaceable because everyone (ideally) has a different focus in their education. With a raising tech level the demands of a job increase as well, which means the market wage rises as well. And now you have more people able to earn a living, without society exhausting itself with unenforceable ideals.

Now you have a society that is equally as disposable in the highest degrees of work expertise and thus nobody is valuable enough to make above living wage, including the mass majority that went through the enormous effort to educate themselves. India is providing a great example of that.

I'm not saying I don't think that education is a big key to helping with the problem - an uneducated public is much less capable of expanding the GDP. But how are we going to ensure access to education when the cost of that becomes prohibitive for those who don't already own the golden ticket of massive previous success (or their family does?) You're still leading to a huge gap if you don't have social programs in place to ensure access to opportunity in education that doesn't damn the person for their achievements thereafter with a mountain of debt.

I propose the solution is the concept of the basic living wage. Tax the system on an increasing curve and pay all what it costs to survive. This cycles the currency rapidly, massively grows the GDP (sure it also creates a lot of inflation but as that goes up the basic wage goes up), allows for healthy competition, distributes resources enough for all, drives industry crazy rather than allowing it to starve and shut down causing suffering for all, including the rich, and so many more benefits. Opponents would argue that will just make the costs of living increase but studies show it actually tends to reduce it due to the healthier degree of competition it enables in society (there's more water in the cup to be sucked through the straws established by investment into getting that water.) There are numerous examples of where this takes place and in all of those examples, the truth is that the fear of rapid inflation becomes banished. People are still motivated to work but they are also motivated to invest their time into other ways to innovate as fear of survival is not all that drives them.

I know you'll not agree with this assessment because you would see the potential for too much corruption in such a system and will argue that Alaska's oil dividends, Social Security, and so on, are somehow actually a bane to the system, and although I've read some supremely eye opening articles on this subject, I don't record the locations of them. I know there's equally as many articles against it. I know we will never agree this is a workable solution. But I would also say it's never been done on the kind of scale to prove its ultimate effectiveness (and largely this is because those in power don't WANT the masses to be so empowered even though it may ultimately be more beneficial to them, because it might introduce new challenges to their power and authority.) This also ONLY works if society IS sufficiently automated so as to enable societal achievement and bountifulness to be obtained without a great deal of need for human labor. It probably wouldn't have worked in the pre-computerized economy. But it could and would work now, and it's the very thing we've earned as a people and a species through all the accomplishments to get this far. IMO, it's a huge achievement that we are denying ourselves because we fear it - and it's a step towards more spiritual and intellectual growth that will never take place for humankind until we are freed of the burden of toil.

There is a risk, but strict IP laws give all the advantage to the side with the best lawyers. With lessened IP laws, the other side at least has a fighting chance.

There's no fighting chance in either scenario really. The advantage is always on the side with the greater financial resources and business experience. It's like trying to start a one city nation in the stone age in C2C when the rest of the globe is playing in the transhuman era. Right. Impossible no matter what the IP laws are, unless the other nations just watch you with amusement to see how far you can get before they want your arctic territory as well.

A few millennia ago being literate was considered a very high education, and certainly many people assumed that they were too dumb to learn how to read and write. Today, you learn these skills in elementary school. Who knows how easy other concepts could become, if we had superior skills and knowledge in pedagogy - perhaps together with better knowledge about the brain in general? I have already given my reasons why I think this would put people (highly?) above minimum wage, as long as we remember to differentiate those educations.

But exactly as you say, it just stratifies society further and really isn't a solution for all at all because if everybody has that degree of education, nobody is valuable enough to make the living wage.

Indeed there is. There is no reason to pay bribes when the government officials cannot interfere with the economy.

The protections of which you speak would be very similar to what I'm urging as well - strong legal protection of fair practices and ruthlessly enforced anti-corruption law. Also known as Regulations.

 

[Heraldic]

Why do not they put slavery as a labor option?

 

[KaTiON_PT]

It was a long time ago, but now it's a world view.

You get yourself a military captive and lead him to your capital.

 

[Heraldic]

It was a long time ago, but now it's a world view.

You get yourself a military captive and lead him to your capital.

Yes. This captive addition I loved. But I mean labor slavery present, for example, that used in America, where slaves did all the work, and they were traded, not slaves to war.