Tax cuts bolster US economy to 7.2% growth rate.

[Sabastian]

My sakes .... racism is genetic then? Here I thought all this time it was socialized. Looks like we might as well give up on racism all together then.

I think it's natural. I think it flows from the hoarding instinct.

I think your comment is interesting but I have never heard of the "hoarding instinct"... but I won't argue that there is no such thing, I simply don't know. You mean greed? Envy?

 

[Willmeister]

Hoarding is massing items. Humans evolved in a marginal environment and food and resources were scarce, so this just became the way things are.

Our bodies 'hoarde'. That's why we gain fat faster than we can loose it (short of lyposuction).

 

[Sabastian]

Hoarding is massing items. Humans evolved in a marginal environment and food and resources were scarce, so this just became the way things are.

Our bodies 'hoarde'. That's why we gain fat faster than we can loose it (short of lyposuction).

You mean we developed a low metabolism so that we could live through famine situations. This is the bed of racism? What of Greed and Envy?

 

[Willmeister]

Racism provides a nice way of amassing the property of others without feeling bad about it. Virtually all human civilizations frowned down upon the unlawful siezure of another group member's property. Solution? Exclude others from the society by any means necessary. Make them animals and deal with them as such and take all their goodies. Any European/Twentieth-Century policy comparison coming to mind?

If someone has something you covet and it not a member of your group, even better. Racism can help one there too.

If there was a rational view of why humans do bad things, I think a lot of it stems from uncertainty and fear of the future. I think that's why our societies that have removed much of the uncertainties (food, water, etc) have decreasing amounts of racial tension.

 

[Natoma]

Really youguys are missing the point.

Economists all say tax cuts make a surge in growth, the question is if it is sustained, and will the incredible deficiets that the "conservatives" are creating going to cause havok later on.

I find it ridiculous that conservatives have tended to tax less, but spend more than the tax lately by far than they tax, and democrats who in the past were accused of similar practices lately have taxed more but spent less than the tax.

The whole notion of conservativism and liberalism is all whacked nowadays.

edit: Also there have not been any new jobs created (at least compared to the # lost) In fact right now there is less job growth than the growth of the population so more people are moving into a workplace with fewer jobs. Hopefully the amount of jobs will also increase soon.


BTW this is GOOD news I want the economy to do better I hope everyone does, I am just saying don't count your chickens b4 they hatch.

Agreed. Almost lost your post in the willmeister/sabastian cat fight.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=186057#186057

 

[Sabastian]

Racism provides a nice way of amassing the property of others without feeling bad about it. Virtually all human civilizations frowned down upon the unlawful siezure of another group member's property. Solution? Excluse others from the society by any means necessary. Make them animals and deal with them as such and take all their goodies. Any European/Twentieth-Century policy comparison coming to mind?

If there was a rational view of why humans do bad things, I think a lot of it stems from uncertainty and fear of the future. I think that's why our societies that have removed much of the uncertainties (food, water, etc) have decreasing amounts of racial tension.

Jokes about enginering professors being Al Qaeda operatives are in some way are an advanced form of this "animal creation" then, I see.

I see racism, much the way you do. However I don't ever see a real solution to it other then eliminating all differences (EDIT: skin color, size, shapes, cultural differences .. not materialistic grievances founded in envy)which is the real bed of racism, in my opinion of course. It exists simply because others are different. I don't think that if you give me equal amounts of food and bedding that it would dissipate. The way I personally think of others that are different is basically that we are different get over it. I don't try to rationalize government programs to minimize these differences what ever they might be. I think though even if everyone had that mentality there would still be jokes we could make that people would find funny.

 

[Sabastian]

Ok Bill, while I understand the wanting to go back and add things that you thought of afterwards, I do find it a tad irritating that after I respond to your post I look and find a new addition to what you originally stated. Not that I have never done anything like that or anything. Sorry I had to get that off my chest.

 

[Willmeister]

It exists simply because others are different.

I'm more utilitarian. I see racism as a tool used sociopaths to further personal agendas, because that's the way it is virtually all the time. Just look at the hierarchy of 'hate' groups. The leaders always get underlings to 'prove' their commitment to whatever cause and the leader never has to put the money where his/her mouth is.

I don't think that if you give me equal amounts of food and bedding that it would dissipate.

Won't get rid of it all, but most of it. People are ultimately rational beings. The Libyans have a saying "a hungry stomach obeys no laws." I also think that the majority of all people respond positively to community works.

 

[Sabastian]

crap.... quote instead of edit.

 

[Willmeister]

An orthodox Jew friend of mine really hit the nail on the head when he said the seven deadly sins can be more dangerous than any others since these sins all feed into, and off of, one another. And each of them become warning signs to others to be wary, which I thought was kinda neat too. I can honestly say that was an epiphany for me, and I stopped really criticizing religon per se. I no longer think it's appropriate for people to think people a few thousand years ago were 'stupid'. I think they understood the human condition quite well and it would be foolish to dismiss them out of hand.

 

[Sabastian]

I'm more utilitarian.

Don't you mean materialistic?

 

[Willmeister]

It's not a proper fit though. The mindless acquisition of crap is very unutilitarianistic, if that's a word. There is no utility is amassing something you can never, or ever use.

 

[Sabastian]

An orthodox Jew friend of mine really hit the nail on the head when he said the seven deadly sins can be more dangerous than any others since these sins all feed into, and off of, one another. And each of them become warning signs to others to be wary, which I thought was kinda neat too. I can honestly say that was an epiphany for me, and I stopped really criticizing religon per se. I no longer think it's appropriate for people to think people a few thousand years ago were 'stupid'. I think they understood the human condition quite well and it would be foolish to dismiss them out of hand.

I couldn't agree more. I think today because we are surrounded by all of this technology and wealth we have become arrogant in that we think we are so much more intelligent then our predecessors. In reality we are not and it is simply a matter of having a larger library or knowledge base to learn and read from that we accumulate knowledge, ironically we learn from them. There is genetic differences but these take hundreds of thousands of years to make a substantial impact overall.

 

[Ilfirin]

He had to because of an extreme lack of job security and insane pay cuts. Makes less with 2 jobs than he used to with one..

Sounds like someone needs skills retraining. This doesn't (necessarily) mean the economy's bad, any more than it means your uncle doesn't have particularly marketable skills. A changing market for your Uncle's skil set doesn't necessarily mean a bad economy.

He's both extremely intelligent and skilled. He was actually one of the lucky ones, most people in his department were fired, and IIRC one shot himself. The problem isn't that he has unmarketable skills, it's that there aren't exactly a lot of companies dealing directly with semiconductors and such in Rhode Island. He also has a widowed mother to support there and was just married earlier in October. So he's mostly stuck there, at least for a little while.

...and the only reason the construction job was open is that it's a job no one wants to do.

...yet your uncle does it, so someone is willing to do it.

Want is very different than willing. No one wants to be a McDonalds cook or garbage man when they grow up, but it's funny what people will do when their only other option is a nice new cardboard house on 17th street. Anyway, it was a bit presumptious of me to say no one wanted the job. I'm sure lots of people enjoy construction, it's just not usually something you see engineers and scientists going into by choice.


It's just part of a disturbing, growing trend.. there are more and more extremely intelligent people that have to resort to manual labor and generally unskilled jobs just to support their family. Another disturbing trend is the amount of people that have to take drugs (like Zoloft, and such. Not street drugs) everyday before work because the stress is so high that they risk having a stroke if they don't.

 

[Sabastian]

It's not a proper fit though. The mindless acquisition of crap is very unutilitarianistic, if that's a word. There is no utility is amassing something you can never, or ever use.

Well it might not be but it is maybe closer to the proper label I believe as things that people eat and use to subsist are materialistic in themselves. I think you are talking about maybe having peoples basic needs appropriated then? If so there should be considerably less racism as there are none that I know of in Fredericton or for that matter Canada that are refused the basic necessities to live on. To put it in other words the only way that you die from starvation or exposure to the elements is that if you choose these things in Canada. I know a social worker whom brought up the argument to me that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" argument. I suggested to her that the argument is flawed in the reasoning that if you have nothing you cannot get more of nothing therefore you cannot become more poor. Then I poised a question to her asking if she knows anyone whom had ever died of starvation? She said no, it would have to be a child that is deprived or someone whom chooses that fate. She works for child welfare BTW. In the end she had to conclude that indeed I was correct to say you cannot get more of nothing else you die.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

He's both extremely intelligent and skilled.

I'm not implying that he isn't!

Does he have skills that are in demand, is the question.

The problem isn't that he has unmarketable skills, it's that there aren't exactly a lot of companies dealing directly with semiconductors and such in Rhode Island. He also has a widowed mother to support there and was just married earlier in October. So he's mostly stuck there, at least for a little while.

In other words...he doesn't have marketable skills....in Rhode Island. Truth be told he's not stuck anywhere. No one is forcing him to stay in R.I.

Don't get me wrong...picking up and moving (especially if it's away from somewhere you've been most of your life, have relationships, etc.) is far from easy. But he does have a choice. If he really does have marketable skills outside of where he's living, he could presumably "live the lifestyle" he's more accustomed to, without working two jobs. Apparently, staying where he is is worth more to him than only working one job. That's his choice to make.

Want is very different than willing.

Agreed. "Want" is what capitalalism is based on. No one wants to actually "buy" stuff either. We'd prefer it all just be free. But we are willing to pay.

No one wants to be a McDonalds cook or garbage man when they grow up, but it's funny what people will do when their only other option is a nice new cardboard house on 17th street.

Yup. On the other hand, I'm willing to be that without the construction job, he wouldn't be living in a card-board box. Likely, he' have to reduce his standard of living, get a smaller house in a less desirable location, etc.

But it seems he prefres to keep his current house and maintain the standard of living he is accustomed too. He prefers to work two jobs.

In any case, he is to be commended for working to maintain his lifestyle. That is highly respectable.

Anyway, it was a bit presumptious of me to say no one wanted the job. I'm sure lots of people enjoy construction, it's just not usually something you see engineers and scientists going into by choice.

Seriously, I just think there's a lot more "choice" involved in his working a second manual labor job than you're willing to admit. They are hard choices to be sure, but they are choices.

It's just part of a disturbing, growing trend.. there are more and more extremely intelligent people that have to resort to manual labor and generally unskilled jobs just to support their family.

I disagree. I think there's a lot of intelligent and skilled people who have a false sense of worth. That there's a lot of these people that believe they "deserve" a ceratin standard of living based mostly on

1) The standard of living the previous generation had with similar jobs

or

2) The standard of living they had 5-10 years ago with the same job.

There's no law that says the same job in a different time frame should command the same salary. This is why self skill re-assesment and re-training are so important in life.

They simply Another disturbing trend is the amount of people that have to take drugs (like Zoloft, and such. Not street drugs) everyday before work because the stress is so high that they risk having a stroke if they don't.

Again, I think a lot of this comes down to choice. I personally think that anyone that is that stressed out over their job...is in the wrong job.

 

[RussSchultz]

It's not a proper fit though. The mindless acquisition of crap is very unutilitarianistic, if that's a word. There is no utility is amassing something you can never, or ever use.

/Me stares at box of discarded computer upgrades.

I know I had a reason for buying that CD-RW 48x when I already had 2 32x's laying around. I just can't remember why.

 

[DemoCoder]

Mindless acquisition of crap fits utilitarianism if that's your "utillity function"

My utility function is: Live as long as possible, with as much freedom as possible, to pursue the passions that I am interested in.

I can't achieve these if I have a socialist healthcare system rationing my care, and a socialist economy forcing me into a union shop and working a 9-5 job on for seniority and pay grade.

Like it or not, accumulation of wealth increases your freedom of choice. If you have surplus wealth, you can afford to explore more options.

e.g. Imagine you have a house mortgage, but $50k in the bank. If you lose your job, you can spend a year or so job hunting to get exactly what you want, and when negotiating salaries, you don't face pressure.

If you don't have any savings, you take whatever you can get to prevent forclosure, further limiting your future options, since a shitty job can tie you down so much, that you have no money or time to try and get another one.

 

[DemoCoder]

BTW, is it not surprising that Einstein was a socialist. Einstein was a determinist, American Deist, and believed that the universe had a clock work precision to it (which is why he abhored QM), and of course, he was a scientist.

If is not uncommon for scientists and engineers, especially people used to determinism, to believe that there exists a single, scientific, optimal solution for economics, politicans, and any endeavor.

For someone like Einstein, of course, he would believe that with the correct bureacrats, or Nobel prize winning scientists, they could run the economy according to some ideal solution that would satisfy the principles assign to people's wants and needs.

Unfortunately for them, the economy is more like a biological organism or weather system than a clock. There is no single solution that is stable, nor satisfies or maximizes everyone's utility that can be analytically computed. It is more like a cellular automata, a system with definate, understand rules, but whose rules when applied recursively, yield chaos.

You cannot appeal to belief of authority to justify an economist system. Just because Einstein was a great physicist, does not mean he was a great economist or politician. Nor are George Clooney or Barbara Streisand expects on politics, not does Noam Chomsky's brilliance in linguistics mean he is anything more than an idiot when it comes to understanding practicalities of erecting the economic and political system he believes in.

Celebrity or specialization in one area does not mean someone speaks with authority or soundness in other areas.

 

[Ilfirin]

Again, I think a lot of this comes down to choice. I personally think that anyone that is that stressed out over their job...is in the wrong job.

Well, what's causing the stress isn't normally part of their job. What brings on the stress are the people hired for the explicit reason of finding a reason to fire you. The people there that'll fire you for having 1 too many personal calls at work, 1 mistake in your work, coming in late 1 day. When you have someone not only constantly looking over your shoulder and questioning everything you do, but threatening to fire you over everything you do as well.. that's a pretty stressful working environment. Of course, I consider this bad business in general, but it seems to be the programmed response to a bad economy for a large amount of corporations out there.

You're right about learning new and different things though. What was the statistic for the percentage of college graduates that never read another book in their entire life? IIRC it was up in the 90s. Too many people think that education ends when you get that piece of paper.