pap

It's a skill, and we love him for it.

Alps, as a dad, I feel sick to the pit of my stomach when I read stories like this, so I get where you are coming from. However, the evidence from over the pond doesn't back your suggestion that the death penalty would be a deterrent for this sort of heinous crime. In fact, the states that have the death penalty typically have more violent crime than those that do not. With specific regard to the case you mention, do you really think that fear of being executed getting caught would have stopped them? Don't like to use the term evil willy-nilly, but these people would justify the tag, and genuinely evil people will do genuinely evil things irrespective of whether there is a noose waiting for them or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmOhzIfiIsc

I grr'ed when I heard that on an advert, especially since the best use of the original is at the end of Fight Club

Most of you will have already seen this, but it sums up Miliband's appeal, or lack thereof. Just in case you don't pick it up, these strikes are wrong while negotiations are going on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZtVm8wtyFI FFS, It's like getting a talking Action Man that has one phrase and is a bit wimpy.

That only really happens in Home and Away, and with frightening regularity. Labour would be a party that could attract my vote, but my local Labour MP has just a lot of time moaning about what the Tories are doing without providing any clear solutions themselves. The problem is, that last part is the important bit. Can Ed turn it around? Possibly, but I suspect not. Many of us thought Kinnock might overhaul Major. An unpopular government with fresh memories of the poll tax and all the trouble that went along with it. Image is important, and has been since the age of television. Here's some food for thought. How the Nixon-Kennedy debate changed the world

Article in the New Statesman. Lord Glasman, the peer behind 'Blue' Labour, has been somewhat critical of the current direction of the Labour Party. The article is a good read.

I know, and I'm not saying that any system can be 100% perfect. That shouldn't stop us from aspiring to better things, or better values to live by. I honestly believe that money is a corroding influence on us, and is responsible for a lot of that the inhumanity we visit upon each other. It's also self-perpetuating. I don't want to get into facts and figures, but I think we can safely say that a lot of crime is linked to poverty. Our solution is to recruit coppers, build jails and maintain a large justice system. Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't have those institutions. I agree with you, no society is going to be 100% sorted - but making sure people's needs are met would reduce a lot of the noise.

I don't like to pull people up on what they've said before, but I think this is relevant. I remember a very good post from you enumerating the forces that drive consumerism, the relentless marketing and the fact that people are essentially brainwashed into wanting things they don't need. You almost make the point yourself when you say that demand is fabricated. Isn't it then reasonable to question the legitimacy of some of that demand? Your comment on "software-writing" seems to be a victory of your truculence over common sense. How do you think that we meet demand at the moment? The vast majority of the goods are delivered through software systems, tied into systems on-site that automatically notify provisioning systems when stocks are running low. Clever software-writing also helps in the design, fabrication and distribution of new products. It even helps to create products from scratch. So, if we can meet all of these demands currently through the abstraction of shops and delivery, what is preventing us from doing the same in the future? And if we were not constantly cultivated into a life of consumerism, would we even really want as much, as often?

Communication is about transmission and reception, Verbal. I think I'm verbose and up-front enough to not have to imply anything.

So how do we do it now, then? Just think about the process of production and consumption. A bunch of companies go out to make essentially the same thing. They spend millions advertising it, protecting it via the courts, distributing it and hoping it sells. We venerate the winners like Apple, but history is littered with flops. That's not really efficient. What about people who commute an hour or so each way to do a job they don't enjoy and provides no value to society? That's not efficient either, just as it is no longer efficient to build much in the UK, purely because of money. But you're right. No system is going to placate everyone. Capitalism certainly isn't placating me at the moment, and to go back to the first post, 500 families who are putting their kids into state care aren't getting placated either.

Oh, ok. Fair enough. So when I said that society needs jobs, referring to society as y'know, the people and places that make a civilsation up, what you got out of that was "pap thinks that society is a conscious, Lovecraft-inspired beast that makes decisions on it's own"? Well, it's quite a leap, but an interesting thought all the same. Might even get a short story out of it. Well within my range

Our species has been around a lot longer than our current broken financial system, and it has always accommodated individuality, now more than ever. When you talk about individuality, give me a clue. The things you need? The things you want to do? No disrespect Col, and I'm not trying to dodge this, but individuality is a broad concept - a bit of clarification would be handy.

That's funny. Don't remember having mentioned society one bit in the post you just replied to, and you made the conscious bit up yourself, so none of what I just wrote really covers that either. Just because I didn't pull you up on it, don't assume I'm validating it. Debate me on points instead of things you're imagining.

I'm not doing that at all, which is precisely why I explained how simple it is to resolve discrete requirements. Humanity isn't something to be made into one thing. People have different needs depending on their situation. Are we meeting those needs at the moment. Definitely not. People are staying sicker for longer, our kids can't go to higher education, we are paying back billions of the money we earn to cover the losses of what are essentially professional gamblers. In the midst of this nonsense, you're equating the efficient resolution of human requirements with a pap-led Borg invasion, and that's not really on, especially as I think I've covered those bases quite well.

Not really letting you get away with that without any qualification. Give me an example of a job that is as crap as you describe, isn't the direct result of the present financial system and cannot be automated in any way. We already have autonomous vacuum cleaners. How is a mop-bot such a stretch for you?

I think I've made my points perfectly clear elsewhere in this thread. I am not going to repeat them, but I will provide a bit of context. I write software that satisfies discrete supply chain requirements for a major manufacturer. For the uninitiated, discrete manufacturing means you build to order instead of specialising on one thing. The sort of components you might need to get vary from screws to complex electronics. We even buy components so we can make other components. It's managed through a process of hierarchical demand. You start with the desired result and work your way back to see what other steps need to be achieved. So, if I (and countless others) can write software to help locate and satisfy discrete requirements, couldn't that same technology feasibly be used to determine the demands of a family? And in this age of technology, couldn't the public Internet be a means of expressing that demand? I admire your unfailing assumption that I don't know what I'm talking about, but I kind of do all of the above for a living. Resolving demand isn't hard. It happens every day and it doesn't happen by accident.

Brilliant debating sir, as always. Love what you bring to the place.

A very interesting question. First of all, how many working class jobs will actually exist that aren't about the creation of capital? How many can be automated completely? I suspect the example that you give is definitely one that could be automated and improved upon as part of that process. What's going to perform more consistently? Someone earning minimum wage to scrub urine off the floor, or a sensored-up cleaning bot? I honestly think a lot of the reason that some jobs exist is because society needs jobs. The first thing you need to do is establish what tasks actually need to be accomplished to sustain a functioning society. How many of the things people do in this country actually need to be done? I take your point about capitalism being a driver for self-improvement. It's undeniable, but its by far the only factor which drives us. What about people who want to follow their passions? Become an artist, actor or writer? Right now, we're giving those people a real bum deal - the universities you speak of are dropping valued subjects and re-orienting themselves to serve business interests. Not only that, but people are often deterred from these professions because of the financial hardships associated with long periods with no income, and the relatively low commercial success rate. It's just another area in which our present financial system is eroding what makes our humans. For all we know, we could have the next Shakespeare in our midst and not know it. His work might not be commercial enough, or worse still, he might just be plodding away in a job he hates because he needs the money. I don't think people are lazy. I think they're disinterested, worn down and uninspired by their surroundings. Capitalism is the eternal compromise of the soul. The vast majority of people on this board would have gritted their teeth and smiled through many a workplace incident because at the end of the each month, you've got bills to pay. We're in conflict with ourselves every day over this bolox, a stunning feat of self-repression which we barely notice. The whole thing is a sideshow. A distraction. A monthly quest to replenish all the numbers that will disappear from our bank accounts. It keeps most people too busy to realise its meaningless. Back to the subject of Greeks putting their kids into care. The easiest way to address that problem is to ensure that the human needs of those families is met. Under our system, those families can become destitute and end up in state-run care. If you consider all that entails; paperwork, staffing requirements, accommodation and the distress caused to all - our system seems like utter madness. No-one needs to work five days a week. If people were free to pursue their passions, were truly free from fear and were not living in a society which pits them against each other, I think you'd have an energised populace who wouldn't mind getting stuck into the jobs that still existed.

Who said that no-one would work? Well, I'd imagine that anyone with a burning passion for design would get involved. I'm not suggesting that no-one works. I'm suggesting that we have the technology for everyone to work less. Indeed, it's already in use in some of the fields you mention. The production of cars is largely done without human intervention. Not suggesting that we all become idle bums.

Sorry for snipping you mid-sentence, but I'd go for this. Under such a system, the idea of cyclical consumerism is massively frowned upon. Isn't it a more productive use of resources to get you a really good motor that will last, and a really good sound system that will last, instead of doling out crap with a pre-determined shelf-life destined to end up in a landfill? You've got me there, as rivers are in short supply Does it have to be a river? We can build canals easily enough. In an attempt to answer your question seriously, your objections are bound up in the concepts of ownership, which is a temporary conceit at best. Queen Victoria once owned a large part of the world. What does she own now? At best, we're custodians of this rock for the short time we're here. And why not? One of the things that the Venus project bangs on about is mechanisation. They argue that we should have more of it, not less of it - freeing up humanity to do other stuff. I have no problem with you sitting on your arse for the rest of your life and kicking back. Do you think you'd be able to handle the pressure?

I chuckled at this

No problem, it's a great question. I'd like to have no financial system. I'd like everything to be free, for human rights to be enshrined in global law, and human needs prioritised above everything else. Essentially, a resource-based economy based on actual human requirements. I really like what these guys are trying to do:- http://www.thevenusproject.com/

Not really sure I'm on-board with this, trousers. Co-operation is as much a part of our success as a base need to survive at all costs. Go back 300 years, and pretty much every settlement in the world had a strong local identity, and all the incentives to co-operate. In any event, we're not really practising survival of the fittest. That implies that we are using our natural advantages to out-compete our peers. We're not doing that - it's survival of the richest, which isn't the same thing. Put it this way. Take one uber-healthy dude with great genetics and one markedly less so. Now give the wimp a million quid. The reality is that the wimp would have better "survival" capacity in this world, yet would lose hands down in any Darwinian contest of the fittest.

I actually do think it will happen at some point, and it'll be a shame if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes. Why? When humanity finally realises this and builds a more equitable society, future generations are going to look at us and say "what a bunch of f**king idiots", in much the same way as we laugh at people who thought the Earth was flat. And they wouldn't be wrong.