A Declaration of Peaceful Intent

Good questions, and I am more than happy that you ask. Personally, I grew up in poverty, and I've been poor enough that I've lived more of my adult life without my own car, than I've lived with one. Despite showing incredible promise at an early age, I felt as though I fell through the cracks of the education system. When a girl in my 1st grade class was skipped ahead to 3rd, despite my performance being equal or slightly better than hers, simply due to her father being a teacher in the school district, I started to shut down. I was incredibly precocious, had already read a set of encyclopedias of my own volition before entering school, and I could see the obvious difference between the other children and I. So heading into second grade, I was already estranged from my peers, and from the faculty of the school. That wasn't the only letdown that school had to offer me, but I never recovered my respect for the system.

By the time I entered junior high, I had already determined that if the school system couldn't cope with the fact that I knew half the curriculum already, or the fact that I could learn the other half with no effort and no homework, that the system itself was broken. I went about my days completely detached from what my teachers wanted from me, but it was useless - I already saw the tests as a result, so if I could achieve the result without hours of mindless effort, why was that not better (or at least the same?). It wasn't long before I was analyzing everything. In high school, I participated in the Mock Democratic Convention hosted at the local university, and convinced my state delegates to select Clinton. I spent that time giving a long look at the mechanics of our political system, under the same critical lens which I had studied our educational system.

I did not graduate, but at that point in time, I was proud of how advanced my state of education was (mostly due to my own efforts in pursuing and consuming information), and so decided that I would just kick around for a few years and enjoy life, and eventually embark on a career as a writer.

Life sometimes takes cruel twists, and about 12 years ago, I found myself unemployed, not for the first time in my life (but it would be the longest...), my car at the time died, and while spending a LOT more time at home, I began to develop severe allergic symptoms. I had no insurance, no real financial assets, and so no way to regain my mobility (living kind of far out in the suburbs at the time), effectively rejoin the workforce (Oregon has long had one of the highest unemployment rates, so a high school dropout with strange health concerns doesn't tend to make the shortlist), or procure for myself any kind of medical attention to resolve my problems.

I'm on the state health plan now which is very restrictive, and my doctors have to fight just to get anything useful done for me, and still we cannot get me into the Allergy/Immunology department which we all agree is probably where my answers will be found. My issues started primarily in the sinus, but have become a widespread inflammation issue, affecting my face (really is just very pink/red with a bit of acne blisters thrown in), my sinuses to the point of polyp growth (such aggressive growth, I've had them surgically removed, and the swelling is coming back), and it seems, my digestive tract.

So at the risk of being exceedingly verbose, myp, I feel as if I have a keen understanding of the failings of multiple segments of our society. I've been fond of telling people that I know, that I would never get up the nerve to go forward with this project, if I were gainfully employed and could just live a peaceful and fulfilling life somewhere. I am here today, because I know that as hard as I've had things, there are millions out there who have to fight for a scrap to eat, and hunt for a little nook to sleep in safely. I'm here because I have spent my life developing a deep awareness of this world, and the workings thereof, the failings of, and the potentials of our great Species.

I am here today because I have constantly and repeatedly had avenues for fulfillment and enrichment cut off from me, by forces beyond reasoning or control. I've lived with a tight belt my whole life, and at this point, I have little want for 'things'. I simply seek harmony within my life and my environment. Now that the internet has opened up the entire world to all of us, and we can see how our national behaviors affect the world, I can't help but feel responsible for all of it. I may not be going out and enslaving kids in third world countries to stitch clothes or mine cobalt, but I am sure I've purchased products that only reached me through the suffering and misery of exploited peoples. We are all complicit in the problems of the world now, and the people of the world are so intertwined due to global trade that we can no longer look inward, we must always look outward.

I am here today because I have truly devoted my life to grasping how the world works, and looking at it as a single contiguous holistic system, and I now believe that the people of the US are weary enough of the status quo, that more and more are becoming willing to listen to the voice of Reason, even if that voice tells them things that they were never prepared to accept.

So far I have painted most of my concepts in very broad strokes, mostly just to whet the appetite, but also to illustrate that everything that I argue for is founded upon certain very basic principles which can then be extrapolated outwards to actually form the basis of much more meaningful reform than you will see anyone in Washington bandying about. For example, the basic premise that today's technology is sufficient to rectify all of the world's material problems, if only we had a more lucrative source of energy, and that we could easily exploit solar/wind energies in meaningful amounts, if we could just agree to stop fighting long enough to do it.


Capitalism itself is a sticky issue. Regardless of the failures of our government, and the broken (not necessarily broken by premise, but by bureaucracy) agencies that it employs, the type of Capitalism that we use encourages outright civil rights abuses.

It is a simple fact that if you place 2 identical businesses within a market, the one that finds ways to cheat their employees, or purchase 'questionable' goods, or outsource labor to places without adequate labor laws will be the business that succeeds, over the business which approached all of its dealings ethically.

But, that is a giant Pandora's Box of interconnected issues.

I will give you the nutshell version of my economic concept: we currently have a logical disconnect between Input and Output. Our arbitrary currency is being abused to create an illusion of debt, even though everyone did their job, and everything went where it was supposed to. Debt occurs, because we are led to believe that Output < Input, which is just absurd considering our constantly advancing technology, and the currently massive amount of externalized costs which actually should make our industrial Output > Input. In other words, someone is essentially stealing or embezzling, and they're doing a LOT of it at this point. Trillions of dollars worth, actually.

We're at a point where with proper accounting procedures, we could remove the arbitrary quality from our currency, and institute a system that is neither Inflating or Deflating, but is a truly Solid State economy. If we observe the flow of goods and services in near real time, we can tune the market value of those goods and services to be = the money in the system, or essentially we can cause Input to equal Output. Whether we base that currency off of rare metals, or human effort, or megajoules of electrical current, it doesn't really matter.

My apologies for rambling a bit, I am more tired than I realized. I'll certainly be back tomorrow to cover more territory, but until then, sleep!

myp said:

Unity, your story is interesting, but I think you might be improperly placing blame on things that are not the actual root cause of the problems you have experienced and seen. I'll admit that I have not has as rough a life as you or others here may have.. My parents were both born in poor villages in India, where we have visited back and I have seen some things that Americans would never and likely will never see here.

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I am certainly not trying to place undo blame. In fact, I understand that most people in the world truly do operate based upon what they think is right (it just happens that those who motivate themselves based on what will create the most personal benefit, tend to rise to the top), and I am sure that you have seen far worse living conditions than a boy living in [relative] poverty within the outlying suburbs of Portland Oregon. At the same time, I know that if things get this rough (and even rougher, I've never been to Compton, but that doesn't mean it's not there) in America, that it puts the current state of less prosperous nations into stark perspective. I do feel that America would do well to start with America's prosperity, but once secured it is our obligation on many levels to bring that same prosperity to the rest of the world as well - at least to facilitate growth and development among the less advanced nations.

myp said:

Now my little personal background aside, you say that our current system incentivizes people to cheat- specifically owners cheating workers. My question in response to that is what system doesn't? Is there a system that doesn't incentivize cheating?

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What my point comes down to, is Capitalism (we could debate how 'free' the market is, but suffice to say it is plenty free enough to allow large scale exploitation of many millions of people worldwide, just accounting for the actions of American corporations) rewards predatory behaviors. We try to imagine that those predators fight amongst themselves, and that people in general are protected from their worst manipulations. In truth, what it comes down to is that the company who pays the least and charges the most, will overtake their more ethically minded competition. You may try to isolate certain moments and circumstances, but ultimately our economy at large is a breeding ground for the most unethical, cutthroat, ruthless, and vicious predators that our society has to offer. Take for example Steve Jobs, America's current golden boy. I just read an article about him ripping off his best friend in a business deal, in a way that helped him get the funding to create Apple. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook? Multiple lawsuits over how he abused his earliest business contacts to get Facebook off the ground but maintain primary control, despite having relied on others for everything but his coding talent.

myp said:

When it comes to owners and workers, I would argue that capitalism is the most cheat-proof because so long as contractual law is upheld, a worker can easily call out an owner "cheating" them... Now if you are characterizing cheating as the business not paying more of its profit to workers, then in that instance I would question your definition of cheating in itself- since value is subjective, there is no such thing as a mathematically determined deserved wage.

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It's very far from cheat-proof. The laws are so complex, that even what looks like a very standard employment contract is so long and confusingly written that your average worker doesn't do so. We have a legal system that is so inaccessible to the common citizen (who can't afford to pay a lawyer to spend 20 hours reading a mortgage contract cover to cover, for example), that we rely on the people -offering- us the contract, to explain to us the details, and then we either trust them and sign, or we're out of luck. During the homebuying process, we had a stack of paperwork that looked like the local White Pages, and had to sign at least 20, maybe 30 times on so many issues - the process of them briefly explaining each document, then the signing and moving on, took over 2 hours from start to finish. Just being told what we were signing and then doing it, was an exhausting and complicated process, and there were thousands of places within those documents that loopholes and clauses could be hidden that gave the bank an upper hand against us. This isn't even going into the difficulty that most people have in trying to seek justice when it's needed, since most victimized citizens lack the funds to offer a lawyer a retainer, and corporations have such well groomed legal teams that the overlap between "lawyers who will take a case with no money up-front" and "lawyers who will try to take on _____ Inc." is almost nonexistent.

myp said:

When it comes to solar/wind, I am not sure what you are proposing? I also do not believe it, in its current form, can power the world- for one, even building some of the turbines for windmills, etc. takes decades to pay off the energy cost of making the turbines themselves.

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You've been sold lies about renewable energy. 15 years ago, PV Solar tech was cost effective at ~10 years of operation, and since then 2 very important things have happened. PV efficiency has over doubled, and the cost of oil has quadrupled. Even if we ignore the rising prices of oil, the solar should pay itself OFF within 5 years and be almost 100% profit from there - other types of power plants take years to pay off, still require some sort of fuel, AND have greater upkeep costs. To top it off, nearly ALL PV panels deployed in the 70's are still in operation at 80%+ of their original capacity. We can debate all day long about what is cost effective and what is not, but the fact stands that if we had just done this 40 years ago even with the early technology of the time, our economy would be roaring now, fed by a nearly limitless stream of almost free energy.

myp said:

As for the currency, for one I don't think a system can exist where there is no inflation or deflation at all- for one, value is subjective.

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Value of goods and services is only subjective because value of our currency is subjective. Our entire economy is faith-based now, since our currency doesn't directly represent -anything- other than our belief in it. Ultimately, this allows those few who can see all of the numbers to wield unprecedented control of the flow of money, and what we've seen in the last few decades is explosive growth of the economy that has allowed a very tiny segment of the population to become fabulously wealthy riding atop their obscenely powerful corporate steeds, while the vast majority of the nation has seen a slowly declining share of that wealth. We're making more money than ever in America, but none of it makes it to the People at large, or to the Government which is supposed to be tending to our well-being.

myp said:

As for input-output, I am not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that we currently think the inputs are at greater costs than what is produced by the output? If so, I disagree- if that were the case no one would do anything and we'd all be stagnant. People taking loans, etc. almost always feel they will be better off by doing so.

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People believe in the system, thus they borrow money believing that they are being treated fairly by their employers, the lenders, and the merchants whom they interact with. Or, in many cases, they borrow because they are being drowned by the economy at large, and they need to grasp at that rope of offered credit, in the vain belief that they can use it as leverage to climb out of their problems. But the system is designed to push people further into debt. Fees that a wealthier individual can simply have waived or ignored, get levied upon those least able to afford extra. Interest rates on those with poor credit or low incomes are outrageously high. And for most Americans, even basic Standard of Living raises at their job come more slowly than the rate of Inflation.

myp said:

Sorry if I misunderstood any of your points and please let me know if I did- I just went with what I thought you were trying to say.

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Well there will be an uphill battle with most of these points, because most of us have lived our entire lives surrounded by and bombarded with the Spin and Propaganda that infuse the system, and that our mass media is laced with. We are fed an old myth about the American dream, to string us along while the chance that we will realize that dream dwindles further and further out of reach. Megacorporations blanket a landscape which once was almost entirely populated with small local startups. Once upon a time you could largely trust the Economy, because most of the Capitalists who affected your life were people who lived in your town. Their suppliers might not be local, but they would fight with those larger companies to get better prices and better treatment not just for the prosperity of their own business, but so they could pass the savings along to you - not JUST to secure their own customer base, but because they know you on a first name basis, knew what you did for a living and how many kids you had, and had a direct investment in the health of THAT particular local community.

Today, most of your friends in the world have simply been shoved into a cubicle, or a factory, or a warehouse, to toil away for the same people that you work for. There is still competition in this market, but it is becoming a wasteful and unhealthy competition, and at the bottom we no longer even see scraps when one corporate entity is overtaken by another, we get the same rancid lies and manipulations regardless of who is running the show, there's just a new branding on the products we consume.

(I apologize, I truncated some of the quotes to fit in the post limit. <3)

Took a day off from posting, forgot to put a reply to you as well!

DodgeFB said:

I will start by saying I really don't have a problem with your plan if it would happen. I honestly feel the biggest problem will be changing the hearts and minds people. I think mankind does many wonderful things, but we are a greedy selfish species to the extreme. When I see people with more money than they or even their great grandchildren can spend, go to prison for stealing just a little more I feel like giving up. I have given up on many things.

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It is hard to Inspire the People, that much is certain. Those same fabulously wealthy people understand that the Apathy of the Populace is one of their single greatest tools to maintain Control, and to create an environment wherein they, their Partners in Crime, and ultimately their children (and specifically, THEIR children, not yours) can reach ever greater levels of Prosperity, on the backs of the Poor.

Many of my own friends, Generation X'ers, have fallen to total Apathy over the entire 'thing'. It has become such a struggle just to find any actual fun and enjoyment in life, that as Working Class individuals, they would prefer to exert 100% of their free time and energy to escapism and self fulfillment, rather than to shift any of their focus towards fixing the broken system that makes it so hard for them to enjoy themselves in the first place.

It is a masterpiece of Spin that creates that sort of mindset even among the most progressive and kind within the Society.

DodgeFB said:

I am all for cheap or even free energy. I have been stuck for years with a gas hog. But there is no way for me to get something easier on gas. And since cash for clunkers destroyed so many good used cars and trucks it has driven up the price of what is left. I hate destruction of anything that could be useful to someone in need.

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PV panels are only becoming more cost effective over time. Recently some studies have been performed to check up on the actual lifespan of PV panels. What was found, is that nearly all of the first commercially produced panels from 40 years ago are still in operation, and above 80% of their original efficiency. If we had invested then, on the scale that I am proposing now, you and I might just be sipping a frosty beverage and discussing how nice the world is today.

DodgeFB said:

Just so you know I sat in a room alone and listened to every word with an open mind.

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I very much appreciate it. I can tell that you are a good man, and I hope there are enough People like you out there, who care what is going on and can look at the World with an open mind, that maybe we can get this train headed in the right direction.

myp said:

I am going to try to make my responses as much to the point and potentially without your quotations to make them easier to read. Hope you don't mind.

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I've always felt that the split-quote method makes it not only easier to read (by separating the statements according to what they reference, as well as insuring that the text being responded to is there in its entirety). But, it's not a big bother, you can handle your posts however you prefer, and I will probably do the same.

myp said:

Capitalism as a predatory system- I do not think the few cases (relative to other systems) of predatory action you see is a result of capitalism, but instead a result of human nature put in the situations they are put in. Lawsuits don't necessarily mean predatory action however- they are disputes over laws and rights. Ironically, you mention Facebook, but that was a case over intellectual property rights (with the Winklevoss's), a market that is completely controlled by the government through patent licensing, etc. Anyway, that aside, what system has less predation? That is the real question. I would say none.

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But capitalism, without proper regulations (I should take care not to sound completely anti-capitalism, I just feel that the amounts and types of regulations in place are largely inadequate), IS a predatory system. Unregulated, as Republicans and Libertarians seem to want, you end up with a system that allows people to intentionally place themselves in a position to exploit others. The Wage and Hour Division wasn't created out of some perceived mythical 'potential' for abuse of workers. Working conditions in factories and mines for example were atrocious. The exploitation of the blue collar working class, and the scale of civil rights abuses was phenomenal at the time, in the context of a civilized society.

myp said:

I am not saying the system is cheat proof, but relatively more cheat proof. As for complex contracts- that is what happens when a civil litigation system like ours is in place. Everyone can read a contract and they should if they are signing it. Not doing so for whatever reason is no one's fault but their own. As for employees- most of them don't sign a hard contract (and if they do its usually not a long one) when they get work, especially at low-level jobs.

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But that's what I was trying to illustrate. The voluminous layers of contractual voodoo which we were required to navigate through for our mortgage would have taken someone at least a full week, of 8 hour days, to read through with any degree of confidence - not accounting for the research required to understand the convoluted logic contained within the documents themselves. You could argue that much of that is due TO regulations that are put in place - but I would answer that with claiming that we have layered bureaucracy on top of itself so many times, as to make modern contracts a maze that no one but a contract lawyer can navigate. And before you say it, no, I don't know a single person who can afford to keep a lawyer on retainer - more than half the nation currently cannot hope to afford to secure legal assistance for any contractual negotiations they might enter into.

myp said:

As for green tech/solar energy- I do not make my stances based on nothing and certainly not propaganda. I have looked into the matter (and am always open to further sources, reading suggestions, etc.) and from what I have seen so far, there is no way it is feasible. It is easy to say if only we did this or do this, but you have to remember that money comes from somewhere- that value must come from somewhere in the market and it is opportunity cost. There is no way current wind energy can power us without much greater costs than any benefits. Solar might be a little better, but I do not think it is efficient/cost-effective enough yet either- I am open to reading materials. I have a science background so I have looked into the actual data too and I just don't see it happening right now. I am all for alternative energy, but the tech still needs to develop and become better. That raises the question as to how most effectively do that and I think history has shown the market is the best option with innovation.

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http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

Energy payback in 2-3 years (at US national average, I am proposing wholesale placement in the deserts of the southern US, which is nearly 50% more efficient). After that, the -energy- is practically free.

Arguing manufacturing and installation costs is complicated, because those costs are generally argued against the cost of putting new Coal plants into operation. I am actually arguing them against the costs of deploying troops in foreign lands. I don't want us to go out and spend -even more- money to make this a reality, I want us to repurpose a large portion of our military expenditure for this.

myp said:

Value being subjective-the value of goods and services is not subjective just because the currency is. In fact, what currency is NOT subjective? For example, almost always a poor man will value a standard unit (whether it be a dollar, a gold coin, whatever) more than a rich person. That in itself shows value is subjective.

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I shouldn't have used the term Subjective, simply because you did - that was my bad, and I apologize. I use the term Arbitrary, because the problem with our dollar is not that it changes value based on perception, but that we are effectively told what it is worth through systems that are based only on profitability and popularity. Just because people like something and will pay for it, does not mean it is superior. It is when the corporations discovered that perception is worth more than the product itself, that they began to seize power over our national consciousness, ie- Apple.

myp said:

Loans- people take loans because they think they will be better off. The system is not some conspiracy to put people in debt- that is just what has happened as people placed more faith in their abilities to maneuver the loans to create prosperity. Conspiracy is statistically very unlikely and I do not see it. As for unfair treatment to some at the top- the root in that is through the government (i.e. fed and quantitative easing) and not the market. Selective interest rates are not a form of unfairness however if all action is voluntary- it is all based on risks.

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I am currently $9000 in debt to Bank of America. I did not borrow that money because I felt I would be 'better off'. I borrowed it simply to survive because the job market had crumbled, and in my state of ill health (I've never had insurance, so when my health began to decline, I had no real options) I was easily passed over for other, more robust candidates. I borrowed that money to keep myself afloat for 2 years until family members and a few close friends became just prosperous enough to be able to arrange to see to my needs. I only borrowed $6500 of that over that time, and the rest was accrued as outstanding interest and 'fees' over the course of 6 months before it was sent to collections. Yes, I do feel that it's predatory that the bank can inflate your debt by 40% in 6 months simply because you are already broke.

myp said:

Megacorporations- and where do you think the rise of these entities started? Why did the small business fade relatively? Two words: special interests. It is a symptom of government involvement, not government standing aside. It is ironic that the thing the capitalist perhaps fears the most is real capitalism because that means he has to stay competitive to sell to his consumers instead of just buying a politician to favor legislation that cripples his competition or hands him big taxpayer money.

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I'm totally confused by your stance on this issue. Are you arguing that governmental regulation of business stifles small business more than the big corps?

Our government has truly become corrupt, I will agree on that much. We need to clean house, and take a much more strict stance on political financing, and potential Ethics abuses. But just doing that won't lessen the impact on Society, of having a tiny handful of people possess such vast wealth and power as our banking/megacorp top execs have today.