> People were spying on each other and the level of trust required
> to operate a modern society was destroyed.
What is the required level of trust and what benefits does it entale having it ?
Economic Facts and Fallacies
Let me see - alcohol induces violence. Pot tends to make people peaceful and sedated.I'm not sure anyones really addressed the issue of, ok lets make drugs legal and then we end up with another alcohol type problem, so what do we do then ?
I believe that is a clue.
In fact the only drug known to induce violence (according to statistical studies) from the direct effect of the drug is alcohol.
As Penn and Teller (see videos 1, 2, and 3) would say - are people fookin insane? In a word - yes.
So why is the truth about all this stuff so well hidden? Well it is profitable. Once you believe in the drug demon it is easy for the government parasites to do a walletectomy. Hate drugs (the way we have taught you)? Give us your money.
It is a protection racket. Akin to a gypsy protecting your money from the gypsy curse. So what would real protection from drugs look like?
1. Don't have the wrong genetics
2. Don't get traumatized
Humans is very interesting creatures. They will believe ten impossible things before breakfast and 100 after lunch. Why? Well it is hard to study everything. So for a lot of things where the personal consequences are low expert opinion (the witch doctor) tells you what to do. As long as it is some other bastard suffering who gives a darn?
BTW who is most responsible for this state of affairs? Purveyors of news. Why? Crusades sell papers. So what are they going to do? After 100 years of crusading are they going to say: we blew it? Hell no.
Is the government going to tell you: we have been wasting your money. We are sorry. We will stop. Hell no.
Personal story: I was writing articles for a local paper on this stuff. The editor got leaned on by the police to get me to stop writing. After a while my articles were no longer welcome. I was ruining their business model. Police were starting to be ashamed of doing their job. It was bad for morale.
Thank the Maker I helped invent the inet.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The required level of trust is such that you can do business with people you are not related to.Nanos wrote:> People were spying on each other and the level of trust required
> to operate a modern society was destroyed.
What is the required level of trust and what benefits does it entale having it ?
What are the benefits? The avoidance of warlordism and criminal gangs. i.e. the avoidance of a reversion to tribalism.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
First off it is unproductive. Second off it corrodes trust.Nanos wrote:I really don't understand why spying on each other would cause an issue, could you explain more the reasoning behind this thought in more detail ?
Suppose a spy takes a disliking to you. You can be brought up on charges on say-so. When police are 1% of the population it may be tolerable. When they are 10% it is impossible.
You revert to tribalism.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
> First off it is unproductive
How is it unproductive ?
Intelligence services serve a useful purpose in keeping one abreast of whats happening at the grass roots level, lose that and you make decisions based on limited data, so your less likely to get it right.
> Suppose a spy takes a disliking to you.
Thats the same as if anyone in the neighbourhood takes a dislike to you and spreads rumours, but the difference is that the job of other spies is to check things, where as rumour spreading by ordinary people is far easier..
Saying no to more police because of the risk of a bad apple causing trouble is a poor excuse when there are plenty of bad apples in the general non-population causing plenty of trouble!
Trust is mainly based on hoodwinking people with a lack of information, it allows scam artists to operate easily. If people was more kept an eye on, it would be much harder to con your neighbour that your trust worthy and not a tealeaf in your last home..
How is it unproductive ?
Intelligence services serve a useful purpose in keeping one abreast of whats happening at the grass roots level, lose that and you make decisions based on limited data, so your less likely to get it right.
> Suppose a spy takes a disliking to you.
Thats the same as if anyone in the neighbourhood takes a dislike to you and spreads rumours, but the difference is that the job of other spies is to check things, where as rumour spreading by ordinary people is far easier..
Saying no to more police because of the risk of a bad apple causing trouble is a poor excuse when there are plenty of bad apples in the general non-population causing plenty of trouble!
Trust is mainly based on hoodwinking people with a lack of information, it allows scam artists to operate easily. If people was more kept an eye on, it would be much harder to con your neighbour that your trust worthy and not a tealeaf in your last home..
The quality of the Brit polity has considerably declined in the last century. The thought of a police state used to be abhorrent.Saying no to more police because of the risk of a bad apple causing trouble is a poor excuse when there are plenty of bad apples in the general non-population causing plenty of trouble!
BTW the bad apples in the population don't have the power of the state behind them. The damage they can do is thus limited.
However, if that is what Brits want to do I'm OK with that. You will be a shining example of what kind of policies to avoid.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
OK so you are a scam artist and you can't be trusted. Fine by me.Trust is mainly based on hoodwinking people with a lack of information, it allows scam artists to operate easily. If people was more kept an eye on, it would be much harder to con your neighbour that your trust worthy and not a tealeaf in your last home..
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I was trying to give a personal example of where your attitude leads. Since you wanted to know the cost of general distrust.Nanos wrote:I do hope that is based on a lack of information :-)
If you start with distrust as the social basis then of course if I am regular member of your society I will be reluctant to do business with you unless I have a family connection and can check you out.
In America we start with trust. It reduces friction in business.
Most folks I know pride themselves on keeping their word. Delivering the goods. Providing quality. Doing a good job at the price agreed. etc.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Ebay is perhaps a good example of this trust issue.
I'm assuming the reason that over the years its become harder and harder to bad mouth those giving shoddy performance is due to this very way of thinking.
Where as, where I come from online, the auction service (Which has run far longer than Ebay..) is based instead of distrust, and people have to prove themselves worthy of being a seller. People will not buy from you if you don't tell them where you live! and you don't have friends and assoicates that can vouch for their honesty. And if anyone dares to treat someone badly, the word is out in a flash in public forums with all the dirty laundry being aired.
I've found doing business that way far more reliable than trusting that someone won't rip me off by buying a product from a company who I cannot have a drink in the pub with the owner and chat about what they did last summer..
I see that slowly the rest of the world is catching up with this approach and we are beginning to talk about bad businesses in public and this is causing them to make things right for us. (I make a particular effort when I find a fault in a product at times to go and broadcast it to all and sundry if the manufactor fails to even want to listen to me, and sometimes its worked! imagine if we all did that..)
> Most folks I know pride themselves on keeping their word.
Are these small businesses ?
Holmes on Homes is a nice example of how the world over, you still get builders trying to rip people off
(People are forever asking me where they can find someone to do X item for them, and why I'm so often roped into doing the job because they simply cannot find anyone who doesn't rip them off.)
I do hear from time to time there are little pockets of communities in the world where you can get your car fixed, the plumber does really fix that leak and your local dentist can fix your teeth!
(In the UK, we have a particularly shortage of dentists, it took for example my mum 3 years to find one!)
I'm assuming the reason that over the years its become harder and harder to bad mouth those giving shoddy performance is due to this very way of thinking.
Where as, where I come from online, the auction service (Which has run far longer than Ebay..) is based instead of distrust, and people have to prove themselves worthy of being a seller. People will not buy from you if you don't tell them where you live! and you don't have friends and assoicates that can vouch for their honesty. And if anyone dares to treat someone badly, the word is out in a flash in public forums with all the dirty laundry being aired.
I've found doing business that way far more reliable than trusting that someone won't rip me off by buying a product from a company who I cannot have a drink in the pub with the owner and chat about what they did last summer..
I see that slowly the rest of the world is catching up with this approach and we are beginning to talk about bad businesses in public and this is causing them to make things right for us. (I make a particular effort when I find a fault in a product at times to go and broadcast it to all and sundry if the manufactor fails to even want to listen to me, and sometimes its worked! imagine if we all did that..)
> Most folks I know pride themselves on keeping their word.
Are these small businesses ?
Holmes on Homes is a nice example of how the world over, you still get builders trying to rip people off
(People are forever asking me where they can find someone to do X item for them, and why I'm so often roped into doing the job because they simply cannot find anyone who doesn't rip them off.)I do hear from time to time there are little pockets of communities in the world where you can get your car fixed, the plumber does really fix that leak and your local dentist can fix your teeth!
(In the UK, we have a particularly shortage of dentists, it took for example my mum 3 years to find one!)
I suppose it depends on the market.
We buy used cars when the old one fails and we have only been ripped off once in 30 years. Private seller though.
Bought a car about 3 months ago from a small time dealer. The head gaskets blew after a couple of weeks and the guy we bought it from fixed it for the price of parts. We were happy.
Our bank fixes their mistakes and sometimes ours.
We bought a bunch of plumbing parts last week and the seller took them back when we found we didn't need them. Our landlord is going to reimburse me for my time even though I didn't fix the problem. The rate isn't great but it's the thought that counts.
A lot depends on whether the seller expects repeat business.
I'm pretty happy with the general level of trust.
We buy used cars when the old one fails and we have only been ripped off once in 30 years. Private seller though.
Bought a car about 3 months ago from a small time dealer. The head gaskets blew after a couple of weeks and the guy we bought it from fixed it for the price of parts. We were happy.
Our bank fixes their mistakes and sometimes ours.
We bought a bunch of plumbing parts last week and the seller took them back when we found we didn't need them. Our landlord is going to reimburse me for my time even though I didn't fix the problem. The rate isn't great but it's the thought that counts.
A lot depends on whether the seller expects repeat business.
I'm pretty happy with the general level of trust.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I found it fascinating to watch efforts made in Eve-Online to create private banks, every time it was tried, a banker would run off with the money!
It interests me to see how one would develop a bank in a MMORPG, I imagine it would be possible if you had people running it who had a reputation built up over many years.
It was also most interesting to watch how the economy was flooded with cheap Chinese labour which lead the hourly rate of pay to drop from $12 an hour to 30 cents. Yet those in the middle or at the top could look towards earning $200,000+ a year.
As such, I think my design for a business model based on me providing a product up front and the customer paying if they want to, no legal obligation, only a moral one. Should prove interesting to see just how many people actually pay!
What do you all reckon, 1% 10% or 50% of people will pay ?
It interests me to see how one would develop a bank in a MMORPG, I imagine it would be possible if you had people running it who had a reputation built up over many years.
It was also most interesting to watch how the economy was flooded with cheap Chinese labour which lead the hourly rate of pay to drop from $12 an hour to 30 cents. Yet those in the middle or at the top could look towards earning $200,000+ a year.
As such, I think my design for a business model based on me providing a product up front and the customer paying if they want to, no legal obligation, only a moral one. Should prove interesting to see just how many people actually pay!
What do you all reckon, 1% 10% or 50% of people will pay ?
That model gets minimum profits when it works. Without profits you have no $$ for R&D or increasing production. Also the incentive for cost reduction is reduced.As such, I think my design for a business model based on me providing a product up front and the customer paying if they want to, no legal obligation, only a moral one. Should prove interesting to see just how many people actually pay!
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
What kind of consequences did the players who did that face? Civilization would quickly decay if anti-social behavior had little consequence. Some of the stories I hear coming out of Great Britain suggest you may be witnessing that first hand.Nanos wrote:I found it fascinating to watch efforts made in Eve-Online to create private banks, every time it was tried, a banker would run off with the money!
In the real world such a shop would attract a lot of freeloaders. Not good if the product has a marginal production cost worth considering. Works for free software (GPL and such), but an extra copy of a file costs practically nothing.Nanos wrote:As such, I think my design for a business model based on me providing a product up front and the customer paying if they want to, no legal obligation, only a moral one. Should prove interesting to see just how many people actually pay!