Government for the people. How?

[Izzy]

The objective of this thread is to altruistically* design a political structure wherein the needs and interests of EVERY inhabitant of this country are met. (None of this "general public" crap, we should try to make everyone happy. ) It's impossible to not be aware of how inconceivable this sounds, but I think by being mindful of what we're trying to accomplish, but.. just might be feasible?**

Now, before we can even begin devising laws, creating our constitution, bill of rights, etc., I think it's best we assemble a list of what people want from their government. Feel free to contribute ANYTHING. (I stole some of these from the world's smallest political quiz and the bill of rights. >_>)

1. Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet.
2. Military service should be voluntary.
3. There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults, where a consenting adult is anyone of 16 years of age or older.
4. Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.
5. End government barriers to international free trade.
6. Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security.
7. Keep government welfare, but no taxation without representation.
8. Freedom of speech, religion, sexuality, peaceful protests, and petition.
9. Soldiers may not be quartered in a house without the consent of the owner.
10. People may not be unreasonably searched or kept in captivity.
11. The right to a free, public, and speedy trial.
12. Laws are to remain the same from State to State.
13. Eventual globalization is a priority.

*We can get into the semantics of altruism later. I have.. mixed feelings, but this most closely elucidates my intentions. (Lol, I swear, I bounce back and forth from being the apathetic hippy civilian who just wants to live to the extremely fervent humanitarian practically daily. >_>)
** Eh, truthfully, it isn't. Too many people disagree on matters of religion, which define the moral code for a LOT of people (even if they don't strictly adhere to it, haha). We need to agree now to define morals for ourselves and not base them off of religious texts. Like, if someone proposes "Don't kill", that's perfectly acceptable, and I expect it to be fully ratified. If someone else suggests "Love God", this is more open to debate. While you can submit ideas that coincide with religious texts, submit them because they are mandates you want and agree with, not just because your scripture of choice tells you to follow them.

Edited February 13, 2014 by bonanova

[Izzy]

Welcome back. In actuality, I'm almost overjoyed with you coming to your senses about the tax situation. Taking your new proposition a step further. On the premise that sufficient taxes exist to subsidize schools, roads, etc., do you still oppose high quality universal health care if we have the money for it anyway?

In your hypothetical situation (the first one, I'll get to the second in a minute), you're essentially asking whether I'd rather one person die or a billion starve to death. While all life is valuable, I think we can all come to the consensus that the needless suffering of one personal is almost negligible contrasted with billions. I'm not going to lie and say there isn't a certain hierarchy to life. The general consensus is that people > animals, and many people > one person. It's tragic, nevertheless, and I would prefer it was avoidable altogether, but yeah, I'd choose a billion people over one. Example, I would personally travel back in time to politically assassinate Hitler and feel not the slightest remorse.

Okay, hypothetical situation number two.

The evacuation of NYC, even if done in a systematic way, puts financial, population-esque (word), and food related hardships on wherever the people are accepted as refugees. Not only would it be a major inconvenience for all those involved, but a remarkable amount of jobs are eliminated and schools would be over-flooding with new students. People are likely to die (suicide, road rage, general outrage, violent protests, etc.) in the chaotic process. Assuming you won't be nice enough to allow me to build a new and better New York in the process, yeah, I'd kill someone. Though, it wouldn't be random. It'd either be someone whose death is imminent anyway or someone about to go on a killing rampage.

Hey, for your next situation, can you come up with something that's actually likely to transpire in the real world? While these are goods tests of morality, you're not proving a point, and if you think you are, it's actually a very silly method of going about it.

(Lawl, calling us intelligent and then attempting to "enlighten" us in an almost childlike fashion followed by a ridiculous "quiz" afterwards is a bit contradicting, no? Though, I do favor flattery over insults.)

Edited August 11, 2010 by Izzy

[Guest]

do you still oppose high quality universal health care if we have the money for it anyway?

Yes.

Hey, for your next situation, can you come up with something that's actually likely to transpire in the real world? While these are goods tests of morality, you're not proving a point, and if you think you are, it's actually a very silly method of going about it.

No, you missed the point. It's not a test of morality and I'm not trying to "prove" or "make" a point. I'm trying to find out whether you value the life of a randomly selected person living in New York City more or less than you value all of the buildings in New York City. Assume that by demolishing all of the buildings in New York City you would not be causing any more humans to die than would ordinarily die.

If you want a situation where your assumptions aren't so tremendous, then rather than the buildings in New York City, how about every building currently being constructed in the United States. In this way nobody will lose their home and nobody will have to evacuate and die elsewhere. Again assume that by demolishing these buildings you are not killing anybody. Would you rather demolish these buildings that are being constructed or would you rather kill 100 randomly selected people living in the United States? This is a value question. Do you value 100 random people more or less than you value a certain amount of material possessions (namely all of the buildings currently being construction in the US (not reconstructed, but just constructed before anybody lives or works in them))? Which would you rather have disappear?

(Lawl, calling us intelligent and then attempting to "enlighten" us in an almost childlike fashion followed by a ridiculous "quiz" afterwards is a bit contradicting, no? Though, I do favor flattery over insults.)

Children do speak frankly, don't they? I'm just saying that I consider a view that a newborn baby is more valuable than any amount of material possessions (e.g. a billion dollars) is a blatantly foolish view to hold. And yet you say you hold it, which is why I'm telling you that I am going to enlighten you. Perhaps you would like the old quiz better? Do you support spending a billion tax dollars to save the life of a newborn baby requiring a billion dollar operation? Before you said yes because you value human life more than material possessions (no matter the amount...!?). I'm telling you that you're crazy for holding such a view because a billion dollars IS worth more than a newborn baby. Do you disagree? What's so special about that baby? Unless this baby is extremely special, then you ought to spend the billion dollars on something else instead. A billion dollars is a billion dollars worth of construction or a billion dollars worth of food or enough to save thousands of others' lives. It's a lot of stuff that people value and you're saying you support giving it up to save an ordinary baby? It's your house, your food, and all of your other material possessions. And it's the house, food, and personal possessions of all of your friends and family. And you're saying you'd give that away to save a single person's life? I consider that insanity. Hopefully you never have to make a choice between a person's life and a large amount of material possessions. And hopefully you don't cause society to throw away so many material possessions for such tasks with your politics. It's common views like yours that cause me to want to be an anarchist. I don't trust the masses to decide whether they ought to take a billion dollars from society and spend it on saving a single baby's life. I'm afraid they would spend it on such a task. They better not be stealing my money or anybody else' money who does not wish to support such a waste.

Edited August 11, 2010 by Use the Force

[Izzy]

Yes.

Why? It doesn't make any sense to have tax payer money pile up and not go to any use.

Okay. Again, you aren't really being realistic. If you're going to shove the worth of a billion dollars down our throats, realize that no operation will ever cost a billion dollars. And yes, I value the lives of 100 people over buildings. We can ALWAYS build more. Each life happens once, is special, and this is undisputable. You look at all humans as the same being, and I'm saying they're all different with an inherent right to life. If I won a billion dollars in the lottery but there was some stipulation where I had to randomly go out and kill a baby first, I wouldn't do it. If it meant the money would be burned instead, I still wouldn't do it. The world was surviving before that money came into play and it will continue doing so without it; the life of an innocent baby shouldn't be involved. You consider this crazy, I say I'm a normal person with empathy. You're emotionless and possibly sociopathic (in reference to the lack of empathy, I'm not calling you crazy or anything). ...Though as a sociopath you would have realized it by now and attempt to feign normal feelings, so that gets thrown out, but there are similarities. What I'm trying to convey here is that you shouldn't trade life for money. It's great if money can be used to help people, but it's unfair to jeopardize the lives of other uninvolved people to help other people. I'm not missing your point, I disagree with it. You're not "enlightening" us, you're proposing an alternative viewpoint that most people disagree with. Oh, and your view isn't some exceptional genius political-revolutionizing idea. ...It's half a step away from insanity.

I can't really remember if I said it or not (got distracted halfway through, sorry if the flow is weird), but I'd knock down all buildings currently under construction (including part of my school haha) to save the lives of 100 people.

[Guest]

Why? It doesn't make any sense to have tax payer money pile up and not go to any use.

Pile up? Have you ever heard of our $13,000,000,000,000 national debt? Congress spends a lot more than it taxes. Are you saying we should dig a bigger hole?

Okay. Again, you aren't really being realistic. If you're going to shove the worth of a billion dollars down our throats, realize that no operation will ever cost a billion dollars. And yes, I value the lives of 100 people over buildings. We can ALWAYS build more. Each life happens once, is special, and this is undisputable.

No, I will not "realize that no operation will ever cost a billion dollars." That is not the point. The point is that you ought to realize that if an operation were to cost a billion dollars, taxpayers definitely should NOT pay for it. Period. That's the point we're debating. I'm saying your view is insane. Of course we shouldn't pay a billion dollars for an operation. Do you disagree?

You look at all humans as the same being, and I'm saying they're all different with an inherent right to life.

Other way around. You say that "human life" (in general, not specific individuals) is invaluable and special. I am saying that I put humans in this same category as all material possessions. Thus, I might value one individual more than another individual. I might value one individual more than my house and another individual less than my house. Thus I see every human as different.

If I won a billion dollars in the lottery but there was some stipulation where I had to randomly go out and kill a baby first, I wouldn't do it. If it meant the money would be burned instead, I still wouldn't do it.

Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

What I'm trying to convey here is that you shouldn't trade life for money. It's great if money can be used to help people, but it's unfair to jeopardize the lives of other uninvolved people to help other people. I'm not missing your point, I disagree with it. You're not "enlightening" us, you're proposing an alternative viewpoint that most people disagree with. Oh, and your view isn't some exceptional genius political-revolutionizing idea. ...It's half a step away from insanity.

A half step away from insanity, eh? And what did I say about trading life for money? Nothing that I remember. Unless you interpreted trading a random life in New York City for the safety of all of the buildings in New York City as trading life for money... in which case you agreed with me that we ought to kill the person to save New York City. Hypocrite? If not, what are you talking about?

I can't really remember if I said it or not (got distracted halfway through, sorry if the flow is weird), but I'd knock down all buildings currently under construction (including part of my school haha) to save the lives of 100 people.

I'd probably think that's crazy of you, but I'm not positive how crazy because I don't know the amount of buildings there are that are currently being constructed. Anyways, what you said earlier in our discussions tells me enough.

[unreality]

So now to find out if you all have learned, I present a hypothetical situation (it's a question of values):

You're given a simple choice. Choose either A or B:

A) Randomly choose a human living in New York City and murder them

B) Evacuate the human lives from New York City (thus saving them) and then demolish all of the buildings in the city (material possessions)

I choose A. What is your choice? (everyone can answer)

nobody has yet pointed out how ridiculous this scenario is, so I will.

Your main justification for not spending the billion on the operation was that the billion could be spent on saving thousands or millions of lives (say, by feeding the hungry).

However, in scenario B, you save the human lives (and Izzy mistook your scenario by thinking about it practically in terms of "refugees" and things, so she missed the point too) but demolish the buildings. So what? Let's say that the buildings amassed to a billion dollars worth of building-ness (for comparison's sake).

So in scenario B, all humans are saved, and a billion dollars worth of damage happens.

In scenario A, a human is *randomly* chosen (again Izzy missed that part too, another factor leading her to fall into your trap and choose A over B) and killed. And the buildings survive - a billion dollars worth of buildings.

But this isn't the same as saving thousands or millions of lives of hungry people!!!! This just means buildings fall or don't fall. You might react by saying "well if the buildings dont fall it frees up a billion dollars to be used on hungry people, but if they do fall, they have to repair them, thus costing a billion dollars to save the person" but with your scenario this is erroneous. It would probably cost much MUCH more than the original cost/value to rebuild. And/or they may not even attempt to attempt to rebuild... which means there's a billion right there to go to 'hungry people' as you say it would (but human greed probably trumps that anyway).

My point is that buildings are not the same thing as other lives being saved. They don't translate directly. So that was a ridiculous scenario.

A much better scenario was your original one, with the operation. Save someone for a billion dollars; or use that to save thousands of people. I have a few points to add on that issue:

(1) a billion dollars paid for the operation is not like wasting the money. The money goes into the hospital system and that large an amount of cash will flow around a lot, refinancing costs of the surgery and causing a backwards domino effect, a positive effect. It's not just like "alright take out a suitcase of 1 billion dollars and BURN it then we'll get started on the operation". It's paying back for services rendered. That's really not relevant though, it's a side point;

(2) it's not likely nor realistic to have such a clear-cut choice. If it's really the government controlling health care here and they tax everyone to get a billion dollars for the operation; but 'we the people' (with Use the Force as their leader) rise up and make an outcry and tell the government to not spend the billion on the dying person; this does not make it likely that now the government will use that billion to save a bunch of hungry displaced people in Africa. They'll use it somewhere else in some other program that's probably not doing as good as saving a life, or it will get swallowed into big-government-beaurocracy and never really be seen again by the circulatory economy. Who knows.

(3) but if (highly unrealistically) it really did come down between saving person or ten thousand people, it's a problem of the lesser of two evils. Most people would save the 10,000 people. We agree here. So what point are you trying to make?

The real mistake you make is assigning a dollar value to human life. That's what allows you to take a certain amount of money and compare like that. But in real life it's never so clear cut. You can't take a billion dollars and say "alright am i gonna save one person or ten thousand people with this money?"

Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

that makes no sense at all, I'm sorry

[Izzy]

Pile up? Have you ever heard of our $13,000,000,000,000 national debt? Congress spends a lot more than it taxes. Are you saying we should dig a bigger hole?

Which is why we need tax increases, not cuts. If you're so interested in paying off the debt that honestly no one else has the intention of paying off, you should support this. Yeah, we technically owe $13 trillion, but the majority of that we owe China, and because we're political allies, they aren't exactly asking for it. In fact, if we were to make it our primary goal to pay China back, we'd have to stop buying their products in the mean time (so we don't further the debt), and they'd actually lose way more money than they'd get. So, while the situation isn't exactly just, the parties involved don't consider it a big a deal as some other things, like, idk, people /dying/. You really have to consider the debt more of an arbitrary number than anything. Btw, how would we be furthering the national debt is the money stays in the US and is just transferred from tax payers to hospitals? Think that one through?

No, I will not "realize that no operation will ever cost a billion dollars." That is not the point. The point is that you ought to realize that if an operation were to cost a billion dollars, taxpayers definitely should NOT pay for it. Period. That's the point we're debating. I'm saying your view is insane. Of course we shouldn't pay a billion dollars for an operation. Do you disagree?

Willful ignorance is generally frowned upon. There's a lot of places a billion dollars shouldn't go that tax payers are forced to fund, the war on drugs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being three great examples. These total up to hundreds of billions (possibly trillions, cba to look up the numbers) of dollars and benefit no one. A necessary health operation actually benefits someone and costs considerably less. So yeah, do it.

Other way around. You say that "human life" (in general, not specific individuals) is invaluable and special. I am saying that I put humans in this same category as all material possessions. Thus, I might value one individual more than another individual. I might value one individual more than my house and another individual less than my house. Thus I see every human as different.

Wtf dude? What's up with your cold outlook on life? Human life is special. It only came about because of an entirely random collision of atoms at certain times combining and evolving just the right way. Had anything been different, it's likely we wouldn't be here. Houses, iPods, and really awesome poi sets are human creations, entirely valueless without humans. We owe our life to the stars, they owe their "life" to us. Something that can easily be recreated (a building for example) is valueless compared to the unique combination of sperm and egg creating a person that, even if cloned, is entirely different from every other person. Life isn't going to last forever. We need to enjoy it and make the best of it while it's here. No matter how you put it, life will always be of more value than money. You should realize how special it is before it's gone. =/

Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

...Wtf?

Izzy: *withdraws $2500 from the bank*

Izzy: *burns said money*

Izzy: *keeps ashes and walks into Apple store*

Izzy: *proceeds to buy a new Macbook pro, whipping out the ashes as currency*

Cashier: ...Wtf?

Izzy: BURNING IT DOESN'T GET RID OF ITS VALUE.

Cashier: ... Uhh. I can't accept that as payment, sorry.

Izzy: *cries*

tA half step away from insanity, eh? And what did I say about trading life for money? Nothing that I remember. Unless you interpreted trading a random life in New York City for the safety of all of the buildings in New York City as trading life for money... in which case you agreed with me that we ought to kill the person to save New York City. Hypocrite? If not, what are you talking about?

Lol, do you read what I write?

I'd probably think that's crazy of you, but I'm not positive how crazy because I don't know the amount of buildings there are that are currently being constructed. Anyways, what you said earlier in our discussions tells me enough.

Jesus Christ child. You have an entire thread of people (well, you did before, they'll come back) telling you life and money cannot be compared. If you disagree, fine, but don't keep coming back and making the exact same points, because frankly it's tiring, not to mention fecking unnecessary.

[Guest]

(1) a billion dollars paid for the operation is not like wasting the money. The money goes into the hospital system and that large an amount of cash will flow around a lot, refinancing costs of the surgery and causing a backwards domino effect, a positive effect. It's not just like "alright take out a suitcase of 1 billion dollars and BURN it then we'll get started on the operation". It's paying back for services rendered. That's really not relevant though, it's a side point;

I have a different understanding of how many works, apparently. You reason that you're not wasting a billion dollars because the money is going back into the system. First I will clarify and say that it is NOT a billion dollar in profits. In other words, it's NOT like a billion dollar donation. Rather, the hospital, etc, has regular profits... the doctors receive regular decent pay. And the vast majority of the money, is simply required in order to complete the task of saving the person. In this case, you can compare this reasoning to another absurd case to illustrate that the paying back into the system thing does not justify what you are doing. To go back to that example of a hole. Imagine a billionaire wanted to dig a gigantic hole in the ground. He builds the largest hole that he possibly can with one billion dollars, spending his money to hire people in the most efficient way he can find on the market. Its a competitive market so his employees aren't going to profit a lot. It's a normal job for all of the people working there. Thus, a billion dollars later, all of these people have been employed and a hole has been dug. The money has been put back into the system, so was it worth it that this guy spent a billion dollars to dig this pointless hole (and let's say that half way through he paid the men to fill it back up, thus nothing was accomplished)? Of course not, because all of those long man hours, etc, could have been spent towards better tasks. Thus, the justification that the money goes back into the system is NOT justification to spend large amounts of money on a task... even if the task is a nice one like saving a person's life. No matter the task, there is still a cost that is too much for such a task, simply because that the value of that task being accomplished is less than the value of the money (because the value of the money can achieve other more valuable tasks). I wish I could communicate this more clearly, but I don't think its hard to get. The point is that I'm saying that the question is whether it is worth a billion dollars worth of efforts to save the person's life. The fact that the billion dollars is going back into the community does not justify it, for the reason that a billion dollars given back into the community to pay people to dig and fill holes is a very poor way to spend money. It IS a complete waste to pay people to dig and fill a billion dollars worth of holes. The fact that they are getting the money back doesn't change anything. Society as a whole doesn't receive any benefit (except possibly the benefit that now the hole-diggers will be able to spend the money on more useful tasks than the rich guy did, but this doesn't apply to the question of the government spending a billion dollars on something because that billion dollars is ordinary peoples' tax money). So I don't think that this argument of yours works. If you still disagree, I suppose you can try to tell me why, but I think this hole digging thing works as an extreme example to show that its the value of the task that you're performing that you must look at to determine whether you should pay a certain amount for the task. Justifying it by saying "I value that task positively, thus I will pay any amount of money to people to do it for me" is not good reasoning. This subsidizes the medical industry so that they have little incentive to invent new ways to lower costs. It makes it so that they get paid to save people no matter how much they make it cost. There' no incentive to invent new technologies to lower costs because the government will pay the costs of your patients' medical bills regardless of how expensive they are.

(2) it's not likely nor realistic to have such a clear-cut choice. If it's really the government controlling health care here and they tax everyone to get a billion dollars for the operation; but 'we the people' (with Use the Force as their leader) rise up and make an outcry and tell the government to not spend the billion on the dying person; this does not make it likely that now the government will use that billion to save a bunch of hungry displaced people in Africa. They'll use it somewhere else in some other program that's probably not doing as good as saving a life, or it will get swallowed into big-government-beaurocracy and never really be seen again by the circulatory economy. Who knows.

You're assuming that our government be extremely wasteful. Why would you support having such a government tax or spend on ANY issue? By supporting any taxes like that you are only helping to make this huge inefficient government grow.

How about instead of having the government spend the money on something else, have them just not tax it in the first place? We have a huge national debt (as I just informed Izzy who was under the impression that our government has piles of money that need to be spent) so I think advocating not spending that billion dollars at all wouldn't be such a bad thing. Anyways, I'm seriously wondering why I'm saying any of this to you. Don't you consider yourself to be a libertarian? How is spending a billion tax dollars to save an individual baby's life at all libertarian? It's a perfect example of a large government being inefficient and wasting large amounts of peoples' efforts.

(3) but if (highly unrealistically) it really did come down between saving person or ten thousand people, it's a problem of the lesser of two evils. Most people would save the 10,000 people. We agree here. So what point are you trying to make?

That was my mistake. I blended two different points together.

The first point was that you shouldn't spend a billion dollars to save an individual baby's life because you could spend it to save the lives of thousands of other people living in poverty and improve their lives as well. On this point alone I would think that you and Izzy would agree that the government shouldn't spend a billion dollars to save a random U.S. citizen child given the fact that there are still many people living in poverty over in Africa, etc, who could be saved with such money.

The second point was the New York City example. This point was literally human life vs material possessions. I am saying that the sum of all of the buildings in New York City are worth far more than the life of an individual person. If I was given the choice to either choose to destroy all of the buildings in New York City or kill the human, I would definitely choose to do away with the individual human, even if it was myself. If you want to use Izzy's silly argument, then I'll say that New York City is unique and special. There is so much history in the city that demolishing it would take something away that is irreplaceable. An average (or randomly selected) human is not as special or unique as New York City. There are other similar cities, but there are other similar people as well. Both the people and the city have their own unique qualities. There is no place just like New York City. So while I value New York City for what it is, if you value things for the fact that they are unique and special (as Izzy does) then I think you can see that NYC and a random human are not so different in terms of uniqueness relative to other cities/people. But, what can each do for society? The city certainly can do a lot. Think of how many people rely on the buildings in NYC for their homes and employment, etc. They mean a lot to people. On the other hand, what value does an average person have to all of those people? Not much at all. The average person only affects a few family and friends ("few" in proportion to the population of NYC) and only helps out employers, etc, with a few hundred thousand dollars worth of work. Anyways... I would definitely choose to destroy the person rather than the city, but if you disagree then I guess that's how it is.

The real mistake you make is assigning a dollar value to human life. That's what allows you to take a certain amount of money and compare like that. But in real life it's never so clear cut. You can't take a billion dollars and say "alright am i gonna save one person or ten thousand people with this money?"

Of course its not clear cut, but humans still have values. They aren't invaluable next to any amount of material possessions. So just because I can't measure my own value very well doesn't mean I'm worth a billion dollars. I'm clearly not and I wouldn't support spending at all close to a billion dollars in an efficient manner to save my life (note: I say "efficient" to clarify that the task of saving me actually costs a billion dollars... in other words, someone isn't just handing a billion dollars over to some doctor to have them wave their hand and cause me to live... it would have to be a billion dollars of actual work with little profit made).

Me: "Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick."

that makes no sense at all, I'm sorry

It makes sense to me, but apparently I didn't write it clearly enough to understand, so I'll explain it:

If you think of money as a debt, then burning the money is just deciding that there is no more debt. By burning it you're not actually burning work and effort. To view money as a debt imagine two people, A and B. A says I'll give you my 5 dollars for your product. B accepts and gives A the product in exchange for the money. Now, B has the money and thus A is in B's debt. Thus, people are in debt to those with money (assuming that they want the money and will give the person with the money a product or service in exchange for the money). Thus, if someone wins a million dollars in the lottery then that means that everyone is in debt to them for that amount. In other words, that person can say, "Hey, I want that mansion," and will be able to get that mansion by giving away the money. So if this person wins the lottery and burns all of the money then he is just settling the debt and saying, "It's okay, nobody has to give me anything." To explain it again in yet a different way: Think of a society of 10 people. 9 of the people have two dollars and one person is broke. The broke person grows some crops and sells them to everybody else for a dollar. Now this guy has 9 dollars and everybody else has 1 dollar. Now this guy is rich and ought to be able to use the money to buy the other 9 peoples' services, etc. Instead, this rich farmer burns all of his money. Thus, he is once again broke and the other 9 people have the same amount of money as each other once again. Thus, by burning that money he acted very selflessly. It did not hurt society at all. All it did was make it so that that farmer individual couldn't get the products of the other people. It didn't cause the other peoples' products to disappear. So now let's say that instead of burning his money, the farmer used his 9 dollars to pay the other 9 people to build him some houses. They build the houses and then he burns them down. Now what? The money is distributed back evenly to those 9 people and the farmer is broke (same as burning the money scenario), except that now everybody in society spent their time and energy and efforts working many hours to build houses for this farmer. Yet, the farmer destroyed the houses that they created. Thus, the two scenarios are equivalent except for the fact that society was hurt in the scenario where the farmer burnt the houses that he built with his money but it wasn't hurt in the scenario where he just burnt the money. Does it make sense now? By burning the production rather than the money (in the lottery example) you are hurting society by having people spend their time and energy to accomplish nothing.

[Guest]

Which is why we need tax increases, not cuts. If you're so interested in paying off the debt that honestly no one else has the intention of paying off, you should support this. Yeah, we technically owe $13 trillion, but the majority of that we owe China, and because we're political allies, they aren't exactly asking for it. In fact, if we were to make it our primary goal to pay China back, we'd have to stop buying their products in the mean time (so we don't further the debt), and they'd actually lose way more money than they'd get. So, while the situation isn't exactly just, the parties involved don't consider it a big a deal as some other things, like, idk, people /dying/. You really have to consider the debt more of an arbitrary number than anything. Btw, how would we be furthering the national debt is the money stays in the US and is just transferred from tax payers to hospitals? Think that one through?

No wonder you're liberal--you don't see the debt as a serious issue and you'll happily spend any amount of money on any task that you think ought to be accomplished. And by the way, why did you change subjects to raising taxes? I was saying that we should cut spending by not spending large sums of money to save babies.

Oh wait, I just noticed that I misread: "If you're so interested in paying off the debt that honestly no one else has the intention of paying off." I'm done discussing this with you. I really don't see a point when I'm facing such ignorance. First write the numbers 1 through 1 billion on paper, counting by 1000s and then go work to make some money and give it all away to a cause that won't benefit you personally so you can get an idea of what a small fraction of a billion dollars is. It's not an arbitrary number that you can support stealing from people and spending on whatever you wish. It's something that represents work. Work, like energy and effort. It has a value (not an arbitrary one). Go learn that.

Wtf dude? What's up with your cold outlook on life? Human life is special. It only came about because of an entirely random collision of atoms at certain times combining and evolving just the right way. Had anything been different, it's likely we wouldn't be here. Houses, iPods, and really awesome poi sets are human creations, entirely valueless without humans. We owe our life to the stars, they owe their "life" to us. Something that can easily be recreated (a building for example) is valueless compared to the unique combination of sperm and egg creating a person that, even if cloned, is entirely different from every other person. Life isn't going to last forever. We need to enjoy it and make the best of it while it's here. No matter how you put it, life will always be of more value than money. You should realize how special it is before it's gone. =/

You sound as if you think I'm advocating eliminating the human race to save the builds humans have built! Seriously! And why is it a "cold outlook on life" to value Osama Bin Laden's life less than than my house, for example? Anyways, it appears as though I am not going to change your absurd values, so I guess all I can do is to ask you not to support using the threat of force to take my money and spend it on things that you deem worthy. I don't at all agree with you and I don't at all trust your judgment on things worth paying for. It is people like you that make me conservative and make me ask for my right to spend my money as I wish. You waste my earnings like mad. 20,000 college educations or a babies life?

...Wtf?

Izzy: *withdraws $2500 from the bank*

Izzy: *burns said money*

Izzy: *keeps ashes and walks into Apple store*

Izzy: *proceeds to buy a new Macbook pro, whipping out the ashes as currency*

Cashier: ...Wtf?

Izzy: BURNING IT DOESN'T GET RID OF ITS VALUE.

Cashier: ... Uhh. I can't accept that as payment, sorry.

Izzy: *cries*

Use your brain. Realize how our money system works. I explained "Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick" to unreality because apparently he didn't understand it either. I assumed that both of you wouldn't require an explanation but apparently you do. Here's what I wrote to unreality:

"If you think of money as a debt, then burning the money is just deciding that there is no more debt. By burning it you're not actually burning work and effort. To view money as a debt imagine two people, A and B. A says I'll give you my 5 dollars for your product. B accepts and gives A the product in exchange for the money. Now, B has the money and thus A is in B's debt. Thus, people are in debt to those with money (assuming that they want the money and will give the person with the money a product or service in exchange for the money). Thus, if someone wins a million dollars in the lottery then that means that everyone is in debt to them for that amount. In other words, that person can say, "Hey, I want that mansion," and will be able to get that mansion by giving away the money. So if this person wins the lottery and burns all of the money then he is just settling the debt and saying, "It's okay, nobody has to give me anything." To explain it again in yet a different way: Think of a society of 10 people. 9 of the people have two dollars and one person is broke. The broke person grows some crops and sells them to everybody else for a dollar. Now this guy has 9 dollars and everybody else has 1 dollar. Now this guy is rich and ought to be able to use the money to buy the other 9 peoples' services, etc. Instead, this rich farmer burns all of his money. Thus, he is once again broke and the other 9 people have the same amount of money as each other once again. Thus, by burning that money he acted very selflessly. It did not hurt society at all. All it did was make it so that that farmer individual couldn't get the products of the other people. It didn't cause the other peoples' products to disappear. So now let's say that instead of burning his money, the farmer used his 9 dollars to pay the other 9 people to build him some houses. They build the houses and then he burns them down. Now what? The money is distributed back evenly to those 9 people and the farmer is broke (same as burning the money scenario), except that now everybody in society spent their time and energy and efforts working many hours to build houses for this farmer. Yet, the farmer destroyed the houses that they created. Thus, the two scenarios are equivalent except for the fact that society was hurt in the scenario where the farmer burnt the houses that he built with his money but it wasn't hurt in the scenario where he just burnt the money. Does it make sense now? By burning the production rather than the money (in the lottery example) you are hurting society by having people spend their time and energy to accomplish nothing. "

If you apply that to the Apple Store, think of the 9 people with money working at Apple rather than working in the house-building industry. They all build computers. The rich farmer buys the computers and then destroys the computers. Now the 9 people have an equal amount of money while the farmer is broke. However, the 9 people don't have computers anymore. If the rich farmer had just burnt his 9 dollars then the 9 people would still all have an equal amount of money and the farmer would still be broke (identical economical situation). The difference would be that the 9 people would still have their Apple computers and thus the farmer would not have hurt society by burning his money. He only hurts society by using the money to buy the computers and then destroying the computers. In this way, society gets hurt 9 computers. Understand? Next time use your brain before sounding like a fool writing your, "...Wtf?

Izzy: *withdraws $2500 from the bank*

Izzy: *burns said money*

Izzy: *keeps ashes and walks into Apple store*

Izzy: *proceeds to buy a new Macbook pro, whipping out the ashes as currency*

Cashier: ...Wtf?

Izzy: BURNING IT DOESN'T GET RID OF ITS VALUE.

Cashier: ... Uhh. I can't accept that as payment, sorry.

Izzy: *cries* "

Not only is it incredibly annoying to me and not only does it waste a lot of my time and not only does it make you look stupid, but it also reinforces your view that your own views as superior to mine. that you are smarter than me, that I don't know what I'm talking about, etc. You might go into denial doing that and think that you're smart and I'm dumb. But, if that happens then you're going to continue not thinking about what I say and just reject everything that I say that you don't already agree with it as false. If that happens then we won't accomplish anything in our discussions. You won't learn that burning the money doesn't hurt society. And you won't learn that using the money to buy Apple Computers to destroy is what hurts society. You also won't learn that paying people to dig holes and fill them back up does not help society by putting money back into the system. Rather, it hurts society by making people do pointless tasks. Getting people jobs does not help society. Having people perform valuable work helps society. It is not the fact that they are getting money. It is the fact that their work is valuable. The transition of money is just a tool to show the value of a task. I like food, but I'm not going to pay a thousand dollars for a meal, even if I'm a millionaire. It isn't whether or not I have the money to buy the meal and it isn't whether or not the meal is a worthwhile task. It is I make X amount of money doing X work: Do I wish to spend X amount of money/work for this product/service? X is not an arbitrary number that you can take from people and spend at will because you like the task being performed. I might like the task too, but I might only consider it worth .5X amount of work to get and thus I'm not going to pay X for it, even if I have X money to spend on luxuries. If nobody else can offer it for cheaper than X then I still won't buy it if I think its only worth .5X. Buy it for the amount of work its worth. Until you make a lot of money through a lot of work though, you apparently won't understand this concept. And anyways, judging by your previous comments that I've quoted here and earlier, you're not going to learn any of this. So why am I bothering? Maybe because I too am in denial. I don't want to give up hope. Perhaps I should though. We're not accomplishing anything at the moment.

Lol, do you read what I write?

Jesus Christ child. You have an entire thread of people (well, you did before, they'll come back) telling you life and money cannot be compared. If you disagree, fine, but don't keep coming back and making the exact same points, because frankly it's tiring, not to mention fecking unnecessary.

No, I don't read what I write in this thread. I did at the very beginning, but I have since stopped.

Do I really have to say it? Just because everyone is telling me that life and material effort can't be compared doesn't mean a thing. There is no majority rules when deciding when someone is right. Wars don't determine who is right. Democracies don't determine who is right. The common views in this thread do not determine who is right. Just because you and unreality (2) didn't understand why your example of having to kill a baby to get your lottery winnings was meaningless because there was no material loss or gain then that doesn't make you two right and me (1) wrong. Everyone on this thread may disagree with me, but that's irrelevant to whether or not what I say is correct.

Izzy: If I won a billion dollars in the lottery but there was some stipulation where I had to randomly go out and kill a baby first, I wouldn't do it. If it meant the money would be burned instead, I still wouldn't do it.

Me: Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

Izzy: ...Wtf?

Izzy: *withdraws $2500 from the bank*

Izzy: *burns said money*

Izzy: *keeps ashes and walks into Apple store*

Izzy: *proceeds to buy a new Macbook pro, whipping out the ashes as currency*

Cashier: ...Wtf?

Izzy: BURNING IT DOESN'T GET RID OF ITS VALUE.

Cashier: ... Uhh. I can't accept that as payment, sorry.

Izzy: *cries*

^If you still don't understand why you appear like an idiot to me, then understand that from society perspective transferring money is simply transferring who gets to buy products/services. By getting the lottery money you are only getting the opportunity to buy other peoples' products and services. By refusing it you are only giving up your chance to buy a lot of other peoples' services. By burning the lottery money instead you are only destroying the government's (or whoever had the money before offering it to you as a prize) opportunity to buy peoples' products, etc. Because the government can tax people to do that in the first place, destroying that money does absolutely nothing. The only way to hurt society the amount of the material value that the lottery money represents would be to use the lottery money to buy a million Apple computers and then demolish those million computers (or store them in a storehouse until they become obsolete and useless). In this way, society would be hurt a million computers. Anyways, this is a waste of time. Unless I see evidence in your future posts of progress/learning, then I'll do us both a favor and not reply.

[Guest]

I have to say that most of the last couple of posts seemed a lot like gibberish because I really can't understand what "points" are trying to be made. If burning money doesn't remove its value, would you advocate everyone taking their money and burning it right now? Everyone would be debt-free, according to you, and that seems like a worthy eventuality, IMHO. Though I do have to say that it seems like that might not work out the way you stipulate...

I have to say, your talk of burning money makes me think of the Joker in "The Dark Knight," though I'm pretty sure that you and he are worlds apart, right?

And I'm just pointing out that Izzy's talk of providing health care if we have the money was a hypothetical, like most of your scenarios, hinging on that word "if." Though in any case, economics tells us that deficit-spending is not all bad anyway and it is sometimes necessary, so you have to consider situations as they come, rather than make blanket statements from which you will never waver.

Speaking of hypotheticals, here's my own highly unrealistic situation. Say a man shows you a time machine and says he'll give you a billion dollars (or pay to save a 100,000+ poverty-stricken lives, whichever you prefer) if you use the time machine to go back to 1905 and kill Einstein before he writes his paper on Special Relativity. Assume that the time machine works beyond a shadow of a doubt and will bring you right back to the time you left immediately after you complete the task. It's just one man, to potentially save thousands. Would you do it?

I have a feeling I know the answer...

[Izzy]

Skimmed much of what you just wrote. Bro, on this name-calling thing you've got going on, I'm more than willing to set up a poll and let the users decide which one of us is the bigger idiot.

..Man that makes me feel immature. It needed to be said. Watch yourself.

*edit* Will reply to the rest later after I've played with my new

lightsaber that just came in the mail. I'm thinking it's a birthday present I wasn't meant to open, but it had /my/ name on it.. so..

Edited August 12, 2010 by Izzy

[Guest]

I have to say that most of the last couple of posts seemed a lot like gibberish because I really can't understand what "points" are trying to be made. If burning money doesn't remove its value, would you advocate everyone taking their money and burning it right now? Everyone would be debt-free, according to you, and that seems like a worthy eventuality, IMHO. Though I do have to say that it seems like that might not work out the way you stipulate...

You too? Wow....

And I'm just pointing out that Izzy's talk of providing health care if we have the money was a hypothetical, like most of your scenarios, hinging on that word "if." Though in any case, economics tells us that deficit-spending is not all bad anyway and it is sometimes necessary, so you have to consider situations as they come, rather than make blanket statements from which you will never waver.

Do you still not understand the concept of an amount of money representing an amount of work?

As someone with money, I would not want to burn it because I want to receive products/services for the money that I have gotten by trading my services to other people.

What's the blanket statement that you implied I made? I can't think of what you meant by that.

Speaking of hypotheticals, here's my own highly unrealistic situation. Say a man shows you a time machine and says he'll give you a billion dollars (or pay to save a 100,000+ poverty-stricken lives, whichever you prefer) if you use the time machine to go back to 1905 and kill Einstein before he writes his paper on Special Relativity. Assume that the time machine works beyond a shadow of a doubt and will bring you right back to the time you left immediately after you complete the task. It's just one man, to potentially save thousands. Would you do it?

I have a feeling I know the answer...

I don't see the point of that situation? Are you asking whether I value what Einstein did after 1905 more or less than the lives of 100,000+ poverty-stricken people? I don't see how this is related to anything I've been talking about recently, buy if you want to know, I would decline the offer.

[Guest]

Wow... And when I started reading this thread I thought everybody would agree in having the same rights and obligations, but apparently we don't.

I'm curious though, you guys are giving (like unreality said) monetary value to a human life, which is IMHO is absurd. Who has the right to determine how much I'm worth??? Who has the right to decide when I die and when I live (assuming I'm old enough to make that decision of course)? I think I'm the only person that has any kind of right over myself.

I'm sure I'd want to beat the crap out of someone who comes to me one day and says, "Hey I'm sorry but I have to kill you because that's the only way I can get my 1 million dollar (or whatever) prize"...

[Guest]

I'm curious though, you guys are giving (like unreality said) monetary value to a human life, which is IMHO is absurd. Who has the right to determine how much I'm worth??? Who has the right to decide when I die and when I live (assuming I'm old enough to make that decision of course)? I think I'm the only person that has any kind of right over myself.

I'm sure I'd want to beat the crap out of someone who comes to me one day and says, "Hey I'm sorry but I have to kill you because that's the only way I can get my 1 million dollar (or whatever) prize"...

I'd beat the crap out of such a person as well.

And I agree with you that you're the only person who has such a right over yourself. Thus, I fully support your right to spend any amount of money you have to save yourself. Even if I wouldn't spend that amount of money to save myself, I will still respect the fact that it is your money and you can spend it as you wish.

Assigning a monetary value to a human life is absurd because it is essentially impossible to know the exact value of a complex human being. Thus, I wouldn't trust the government with the job of peoples' health care. The value of their life is too subjective. Some people might think a baby is worth billions of dollars while others wouldn't pay more than a few thousand dollars to save the baby's life. Thus, leave this matter to individuals to agree on. Leave the government out because if you don't then they will end up paying for things with taxpayer money that many taxpayers will very strongly disagree with.

[unreality]

I have a different understanding of how many works, apparently.

no, you have a different illusion of how money works It's ironic but it seems from your definition of money that you would be a socialist. But that's not the case.

If you really were a libertarian you would know that someone can spend money on whatever they want to. If I was a billionaire, I could hire hole-diggers to build a hole for 500 million and then close it up for the 500 million if I want to. I can do that if I wanted to because I have the money to pay for it and the supply of workers willing to work.

And yes the billion does go into the economy because (no matter how "worthless" you personally think digging a hole is) the workers were paid for their work at the rate agreed upon.

You're assuming that our government be extremely wasteful

newsflash: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The first point was that you shouldn't spend a billion dollars to save an individual baby's life because you could spend it to save the lives of thousands of other people living in poverty and improve their lives as well. On this point alone I would think that you and Izzy would agree that the government shouldn't spend a billion dollars to save a random U.S. citizen child given the fact that there are still many people living in poverty over in Africa, etc, who could be saved with such money.

yes but you missed MY point - I said I agree with this, IF we knew that the money WAS going to those people, instead of elsewhere we didn't want it.

The second point was the New York City example. This point was literally human life vs material possessions. I am saying that the sum of all of the buildings in New York City are worth far more than the life of an individual person. If I was given the choice to either choose to destroy all of the buildings in New York City or kill the human, I would definitely choose to do away with the individual human, even if it was myself.

Really? Could you really if the time came? If some government spooks came to your door and said they need to either destroy you or the buildings of NYC, would you comply with that? And if you couldn't bring yourself to kill yourself for a bunch of structures, how can you expect anyone else to?

If you decided that JarZe was worth 3 thousand and 4 dollars, what happens if there's a surgery to save him that's 3 thousand and 5? [edit = nevermind, just saw the post above mine. I'm glad you at least recognize that valuing a human exactly is stupid] Would you personally authorize letting him die? Would you stake human lives on the idea that your economic ideals are correct?

If you want to use Izzy's silly argument, then I'll say that New York City is unique and special. There is so much history in the city that demolishing it would take something away that is irreplaceable. An average (or randomly selected) human is not as special or unique as New York City. There are other similar cities, but there are other similar people as well. Both the people and the city have their own unique qualities. There is no place just like New York City. So while I value New York City for what it is, if you value things for the fact that they are unique and special (as Izzy does) then I think you can see that NYC and a random human are not so different in terms of uniqueness relative to other cities/people. But, what can each do for society? The city certainly can do a lot. Think of how many people rely on the buildings in NYC for their homes and employment, etc. They mean a lot to people. On the other hand, what value does an average person have to all of those people? Not much at all. The average person only affects a few family and friends ("few" in proportion to the population of NYC) and only helps out employers, etc, with a few hundred thousand dollars worth of work. Anyways... I would definitely choose to destroy the person rather than the city, but if you disagree then I guess that's how it is.

I do disagree; that's how it is.

If you think of money as a debt, then burning the money is just deciding that there is no more debt. By burning it you're not actually burning work and effort. To view money as a debt imagine two people, A and B. A says I'll give you my 5 dollars for your product. B accepts and gives A the product in exchange for the money. Now, B has the money and thus A is in B's debt. Thus, people are in debt to those with money (assuming that they want the money and will give the person with the money a product or service in exchange for the money). Thus, if someone wins a million dollars in the lottery then that means that everyone is in debt to them for that amount. In other words, that person can say, "Hey, I want that mansion," and will be able to get that mansion by giving away the money. So if this person wins the lottery and burns all of the money then he is just settling the debt and saying, "It's okay, nobody has to give me anything." To explain it again in yet a different way: Think of a society of 10 people. 9 of the people have two dollars and one person is broke. The broke person grows some crops and sells them to everybody else for a dollar. Now this guy has 9 dollars and everybody else has 1 dollar. Now this guy is rich and ought to be able to use the money to buy the other 9 peoples' services, etc. Instead, this rich farmer burns all of his money. Thus, he is once again broke and the other 9 people have the same amount of money as each other once again. Thus, by burning that money he acted very selflessly. It did not hurt society at all. All it did was make it so that that farmer individual couldn't get the products of the other people. It didn't cause the other peoples' products to disappear. So now let's say that instead of burning his money, the farmer used his 9 dollars to pay the other 9 people to build him some houses. They build the houses and then he burns them down. Now what? The money is distributed back evenly to those 9 people and the farmer is broke (same as burning the money scenario), except that now everybody in society spent their time and energy and efforts working many hours to build houses for this farmer. Yet, the farmer destroyed the houses that they created. Thus, the two scenarios are equivalent except for the fact that society was hurt in the scenario where the farmer burnt the houses that he built with his money but it wasn't hurt in the scenario where he just burnt the money. Does it make sense now? By burning the production rather than the money (in the lottery example) you are hurting society by having people spend their time and energy to accomplish nothing.

You're missing the point of money: exchange. Exchanging goods and services for a currency that is mutually trusted to be usable elsewhere for roughly equally market-valued goods and services, etc.

Let's break down your paragraph:

"By burning it you're not actually burning work and effort."

This directly contradicts what you just told dawh: "Do you still not understand the concept of an amount of money representing an amount of work?"

Moving on, "that person can say, "Hey, I want that mansion," and will be able to get that mansion by giving away the money"

This is where your money=debt idea doesn't hold up; nobody is actually in actual debt and thus nobody is "required" in some way to sell their mansion. Even if I offer them 10 trillion dollars they could decide to keep their mansion.

"Thus, by burning that money he acted very selflessly"

No, just stupidly because now he has nothing that others want. It doesn't somehow help the others; it just hurts himself. It could even hurt the others because if they couldn't barter for something they wanted because the person with the stuff they wanted didn't want their stuff then they would have to exchange their goods with the money because the money was something the person with the goods they wanted did want. But now they can't because it's gone.

By the way, if you ever feel the need to act selflessly and burn your money, just hand it over to me and I'll say I burned it for you

Onto your final attempt: " the farmer used his 9 dollars to pay the other 9 people to build him some houses. They build the houses and then he burns them down. Now what? The money is distributed back evenly to those 9 people and the farmer is broke (same as burning the money scenario), except that now everybody in society spent their time and energy and efforts working many hours to build houses for this farmer. Yet, the farmer destroyed the houses that they created. "

This is incorrect. You're not realizing the net sum of value is the same.

In the beginning: (let's say 1 farmer and 1 builder)

Farmer: 9 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars, labor he can use to build stuff (valued at 9 dollars)

after the house is built:

Farmer: 0 dollars, house built with Builder's labor (valued at 9 dollars)

Builder: 9 dollars

after farmer destroys house:

Farmer: 0 dollars

Builder: 9 dollars

total value in existence = 9 dollars (in hands of Builder

The builder still got paid 9 dollars for his labor. After that, he could care less whether the farmer destroys his new house. If he had just burned the money the scenario would be like this:

In the beginning: (let's say 1 farmer and 1 builder)

Farmer: 9 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars, labor he can use to build stuff (valued at 9 dollars)

after the money is burnt:

Farmer: 0 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars, labor he can use to build stuff (valued at 9 dollars)

total value in existence = 9 dollars (in hands of Builder) (potential dollars)

Notice any similarities with the previous spoiler? Of course you do. Once the builder's labor has been valued at 9 dollars, it becomes as meaningful as the currency, at least in the scope of this exchange. If the farmer burns his money instead of hiring the builder, the builder can take his time and effort elsewhere and still make 9 dollars. You agree with that because that was your point.

Yet in the first case the end result is exactly the same (9 dollars to the builder, nothing to the farmer).

~~~~~~~~~~

Again you're not realizing that in a true capitalist society, if I have a billion dollars I can spend it how I want. I can have people dig a hole then fill it in, and be damned if anyone like you thinks there was no value in that. I obviously thought there was value in it because I paid for it to happen. It doesn't matter that Use the Force didn't think so; what mattered was that I valued the task at 1 billion dollars so I paid 1 billion dollars for it.

Edited August 12, 2010 by unreality

[Guest]

As someone with money, I would not want to burn it because I want to receive products/services for the money that I have gotten by trading my services to other people.

So apparently, the money does have some inherent value to you. It doesn't make any sense to say that burning the money isn't wasting it. And that paragraph @unreality about money representing debt that others owe you is completely incomprehensible. Money is a commodity traded for services rendered or products provided, like you said. My point was that burning the money is the same as burning the product. It's not a sign of obligation, it's a fairly traded commodity. It's just more universal than providing the service of being a blacksmith. So your rant at Izzy really makes no sense.

I don't see the point of that situation? Are you asking whether I value what Einstein did after 1905 more or less than the lives of 100,000+ poverty-stricken people? I don't see how this is related to anything I've been talking about recently, buy if you want to know, I would decline the offer.

Right, I expected you to decline because you already know what contributions Einstein makes for society. So let's change the circumstances a little. Suspend you disbelief, if you are able, and imagine yourself as a dirt-poor man living in 1905. A man offers you one million dollars (an astronomical sum at that time) to kill some man named Albert Einstein. Einstein is a nobody. Would you still decline to kill him? What's the difference between the two situations?

[Guest]

"If you think of money as a debt, then burning the money is just deciding that there is no more debt. By burning it you're not actually burning work and effort. To view money as a debt imagine two people, A and B. A says I'll give you my 5 dollars for your product. B accepts and gives A the product in exchange for the money. Now, B has the money and thus A is in B's debt. Thus, people are in debt to those with money (assuming that they want the money and will give the person with the money a product or service in exchange for the money). Thus, if someone wins a million dollars in the lottery then that means that everyone is in debt to them for that amount.

I think unreality did a good job explaining why this doesn't work the way you're putting it.

The bolded text is where I don't understand, but let me get this straight. You're saying that if X person in the country wins the lottery for 1 Million Dollars, then "everybody" in the country is in debt with that person? Why? Why do I owe any amount of money(product/service) to that person? He on the other hand has the "right" to want anything at the moment, but that doesn't force me to provide him my product/service, which if I'm in debt I have the obligation to do.

I think you contradict yourself too when you say that you respect the fact that it's my money and that I can do whatever I want to with it. But then you state that it hurts society if I waste my money on whatever I want to, as long as it doesn't benefit society as a whole.

[Izzy]

Izzy: If I won a billion dollars in the lottery but there was some stipulation where I had to randomly go out and kill a baby first, I wouldn't do it. If it meant the money would be burned instead, I still wouldn't do it.

Me: Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

Izzy: ...Wtf?

Izzy: *withdraws $2500 from the bank*

Izzy: *burns said money*

Izzy: *keeps ashes and walks into Apple store*

Izzy: *proceeds to buy a new Macbook pro, whipping out the ashes as currency*

Cashier: ...Wtf?

Izzy: BURNING IT DOESN'T GET RID OF ITS VALUE.

Cashier: ... Uhh. I can't accept that as payment, sorry.

Izzy: *cries*

Are you incapable of reading, or just logically following one from one statement to another? Money > ashes. That's why, had I not burned that money, I would have a new Macbook. But I did, so I'm left with a valueless pile of ashes. The cashier can't accept my payment because the value of what I'm trying to pay with has been entirely destroyed when it was set alight.

Adding a little to unreality's example.

Farmer: I want someone to build me a house! I'll pay them $9!

Builder: Aye sir, I'll gladly do it.

Farmer: Hooray, let me pay you in advance. *pays*

Farmer: *builds house*

Money in play: $9 in the hands of the builder, and a house valued at $9 for the farmer, which he can sell.

So, with this exchange, the networth of the country has actually gone up because a new house was created.

If the builder burns his money, the farmer still has $9 worth of materials, and vice versa. If both burn the money and house, then it's like nothing ever happend, and the farmer is out $9 and the builder is out several hours of hard labor. My point? The burning of products, be it money or lightsabers, makes them valueless. If I buy a Macbook and then burn it, the money, now in the hands of the Apple Corporation is still in play and can be used to do other things. So.. at everything you said.

On to debt. I'm not saying it isn't serious, but I'm saying every sensible person realizes there are more serious things to worry about. It's just /money/. I'm sick of people think everything revolves around money and I'm sick of living in a system that makes things impossible without money. Yeah, it's an awesome way to trade, and I personally can't think of a better system, but it's disgusting. Money should be knocked down a peg and seen as what it is - an item for trading. And then people need to be seen as items that cannot be traded. UtF, how much would you sell your children into slavery for? $1 billion? Two? Okay, maybe not your children, because you love them. Someone else's children? The children at the orphanage? "But Izzy, there labor would never be worth $1 billion." Ah, but what if they're working the cocaine fields down in Colombia? Okay, let's say you find a child, and our magical glass ball allowing us to see in the future shows that where he currently lives, he'll never contribute more than $5000 to society. However, if you sell him into slavery, he'll contribute $499,999, exactly. Do you sell him, knowing full well his new life will suuuck? Or, if he would contribute $5000 to society as he is, would you sell him for $5001? $5002? Just trying to figure out where you stand on all this.

No, I don't read what [you] write in this thread. I did at the very beginning, but I have since stopped.

That would explain why nothing you say makes sense.

Getting people jobs does not help society

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to reinforce my view that, "[my] views as superior to [yours]. that are smarter than [you], that [you] don't know what I'm talking about" (), but.. wtf? Giving people jobs stimulates the economy and keeps the money flowing so it doesn't sit around in banks. It decreases our unemployment rate and makes people self-sustaining so they don't have to rely on government welfare to survive. It boosts the net-worth of our nation. Please go take an economics class and come back when you understand something as basic as the importance of jobs.

[Guest]

"You're assuming that our government be extremely wasteful"-Me

newsflash: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

I pointed out our huge debt just a couple posts ago... my point was that you said that if we didn't spend the billion dollars on the baby, then it's not like out government was going to spend it on anything better considering how bureaucratic and wasteful our government. Thus, I said that you're assuming that our government has to be extremely wasteful. If it has to be extremely wasteful then I suppose its not that bad to waste a billion dollars on saving a baby, but a far better alternative would be to make our government NOT wasteful, by not taxing that billion dollars in the first place.

If you really were a libertarian you would know that someone can spend money on whatever they want to. If I was a billionaire, I could hire hole-diggers to build a hole for 500 million and then close it up for the 500 million if I want to. I can do that if I wanted to because I have the money to pay for it and the supply of workers willing to work.

You don't have to be a libertarian to know that that's obvious. My point was that it hurts society to do such a thing so having our government do that intentionally is retarded. We can't stop individuals from being stupid, but we certainly can stop our government from such being so wasteful.

yes but you missed MY point - I said I agree with this, IF we knew that the money WAS going to those people, instead of elsewhere we didn't want it.

So why did you say you support spending a billion dollars to save a baby then? Your income is being taxed to help pay for that baby, but you could instead give your money to the other causes that would use the money a lot more efficiently.... This is why I said that you must be assuming that our government must act inefficiently.... It doesn't have to be inefficient. There is such a thing as opposing all taxes/spending that go towards inefficient causes. That's what I'm for. Yet for some reason you support paying a billion dollars to inefficiently save a baby's life because you are afraid that if you don't support that then the money is going to be spent towards an even less efficient and less worthy task. Wake up call to you too: that doesn't have to happen either. Don't support an inefficient government program for fear that if you don't support it then the money will go to an even more inefficient program. It's still inefficient and is thus still hurting our society.

Really? Could you really if the time came? If some government spooks came to your door and said they need to either destroy you or the buildings of NYC, would you comply with that? And if you couldn't bring yourself to kill yourself for a bunch of structures, how can you expect anyone else to?

Well hypothetically of course I would. I most definitely value the billions of dollars of buildings in New York City more than any individual's life. In reality, if someone actually came up to me and asked me to kill myself to prevent the buildings in New York from collapsing then I would be extremely skeptical. Assuming that the buildings in New York actually WOULD collapse if I didn't kill myself, then yes, I would gladly sacrifice myself for the city. You should too.

If you decided that JarZe was worth 3 thousand and 4 dollars

I already said that this is absurd. I can give rough estimates like "less than one billion dollars and more than one thousand dollars," but to ask for specifics is absurd.

I'll possibly reply to the rest later, but you all seem to be misunderstanding a lot so I'm not sure what the point of continuing this is.

[Guest]

Again you're not realizing that in a true capitalist society, if I have a billion dollars I can spend it how I want. I can have people dig a hole then fill it in, and be damned if anyone like you thinks there was no value in that. I obviously thought there was value in it because I paid for it to happen. It doesn't matter that Use the Force didn't think so; what mattered was that I valued the task at 1 billion dollars so I paid 1 billion dollars for it.

Of course I realize this. I've said it a dozen times: You can waste your money all you want--it's your money! But, don't tax me so that you can have the government waste MY money--that's MY money and I don't want you wasting it on a billion dollar operation to save a single ordinary baby!

Now onto this issue for hopefully the final time:

Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

Onto your final attempt: " the farmer used his 9 dollars to pay the other 9 people to build him some houses. They build the houses and then he burns them down. Now what? The money is distributed back evenly to those 9 people and the farmer is broke (same as burning the money scenario), except that now everybody in society spent their time and energy and efforts working many hours to build houses for this farmer. Yet, the farmer destroyed the houses that they created. "

This is incorrect. You're not realizing the net sum of value is the same.

In the beginning: (let's say 1 farmer and 1 builder)

Farmer: 9 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars, labor he can use to build stuff (valued at 9 dollars)

after the house is built:

Farmer: 0 dollars, house built with Builder's labor (valued at 9 dollars)

Builder: 9 dollars

after farmer destroys house:

Farmer: 0 dollars

Builder: 9 dollars

total value in existence = 9 dollars (in hands of Builder

The builder still got paid 9 dollars for his labor. After that, he could care less whether the farmer destroys his new house. If he had just burned the money the scenario would be like this:

In the beginning: (let's say 1 farmer and 1 builder)

Farmer: 9 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars, labor he can use to build stuff (valued at 9 dollars)

after the money is burnt:

Farmer: 0 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars, labor he can use to build stuff (valued at 9 dollars)

total value in existence = 9 dollars (in hands of Builder) (potential dollars)

Notice any similarities with the previous spoiler? Of course you do. Once the builder's labor has been valued at 9 dollars, it becomes as meaningful as the currency, at least in the scope of this exchange. If the farmer burns his money instead of hiring the builder, the builder can take his time and effort elsewhere and still make 9 dollars. You agree with that because that was your point.

Yet in the first case the end result is exactly the same (9 dollars to the builder, nothing to the farmer).

You messed up the hypothetical situation with the farmer and the builder by again misunderstanding that by destroying the money itself you are not actually destroying any production. Rather, you are just destroying your own ability to trade the money for another person's production. But, this does not hurt society, only yourself. I'll illustrate the Farmer-Builder scenario more clearly this time (and actually re-read what I write) for you, Izzy, and dawh, so that you all don't misunderstand it again:

Farmer-Builder Scenario... Burning Money does NOT hurt society... Using money to buy a product and then destroying that product DOES hurt society.]Start:

Farmer: 9 dollars (owns nothing)

Builder: 9 dollars (owns nothing)

Thus, the current starting value of the society is 0 because neither of them own nothing. All they have is some cash, but there aren't any products to buy.

One year later, Farmer has been farming for both himself and Builder, thus keeping them both alive. Builder has paid Farmer 9 dollars over the course of the year for Farmer's food. Thus now:

Farmer: 18 dollars

Builder: 0 dollars

Also in this first year, Builder has built two houses.

Thus after this first year, this builder-farmer society has survived with Farmer's food and has a net production of two houses.

Now there are Two Futures:

Future #1:

Farmer burns 9 of his dollars (and thus has 9 dollars leftover, while Builder is still broke). The society still has a net production of two houses. Thus illustrating that the money is just a tool of exchange: Burning the money itself doesn't hurt the society.

Future #2:

Instead of burning his money, Farmer buys a house from Builder for 9 dollars. Doing this does not change the net production of the society. It only transfers a house from Builder's ownership to Farmer's ownership and gives Farmer money so that he can trade the money for future products/services.

Now, however, Farmer burns down the house that he just bought. This DOES change the net production of the society because now the net production of the society after its first year is only one house, because Farmer burnt the second house down.

So in the first future, Farmer burnt his money and that did NOT have any affect on society--society still had two houses. In the second future, Farmer used his money to buy a house from Builder and then destroyed the house. This DID hurt society because now society only has one house instead of two.

Thus, I am right and you (unreality), Izzy, and dawh ("My point was that burning the money is the same as burning the product."-Dawh) are wrong. Burning the money is not the same as burning the product. Burning the money just gets rid of your opportunity to increase the value of your material possessions (because you can no longer buy more possessions)--it does not change the net value of society. On the other hand, using the money to buy products and then burning the products again doesn't change the value of your material possessions (because you just burnt the material products you bought), but this time, society no longer has those products that you just destroyed and thus you hurt society by the amount of material production that you destroyed.

If I won a billion dollars in the lottery but there was some stipulation where I had to randomly go out and kill a baby first, I wouldn't do it. If it meant the money would be burned instead, I still wouldn't do it.

Burning it wouldn't get rid of its value. If you used it to buy buildings and then demolished the buildings you buy, then that would do the trick.

So as you all hopefully finally realize, I was correct in pointing out that burning the money wouldn't get rid of its value. First Izzy said that she wouldn't take her winnings if she had to kill a baby for it (note: I wouldn't either). Then she said even "if it meant the money would be burned instead, I still wouldn't do it," as if that would destroy the material worth of the lottery winnings. In reality, destroying the money only changes who gets to buy products (i.e. it changes who has money). It doesn't hurt society though at all. So of course I wouldn't kill a baby for the money--killing a baby DOES hurt society!

So now I predict that if I don't write this paragraph then at least one of you will make the mistake of thinking that I should be fine with changing who has a billion dollars of money (taxpayers giving money to doctors) if that would save the baby. The problem is that you are not simply changing who has money... you are not simply giving the money to the doctors... rather, you are exchanging the money for production (i.e. all of the costs of the medical equipment to save the baby, etc). Thus, you are not simply giving the doctors money. Rather, you are buying the doctor's baby-saving house hoping that the baby-saving house that cost a billion dollars to build is actually going to be worth a billion dollars to society. In reality, it won't be worth a billion dollars. It's like spending a billion dollars to dig a gigantic hole. That hole may have cost a billion dollars, but it is only worth a couple million dollars at most to the people who canoe on it, etc. Thus, spending a billion dollars on a hole that is only worth a couple million is a wasteful way to spend your money in the same way that spending a billion dollars to save a baby that is only worth a couple million dollars is a wasteful way to spend your money. Now, you all can continue to disagree with me about the monetary value of a baby--all I can do is show you that economically an individual very rarely produces more than a couple million dollars of houses/services in his lifetime and rarely causes others to increase their production by more than a couple million dollars. Thus said person is not worth a whole lot more than 2x(a couple) million dollars to me and thus I wouldn't pay more than that amount of money to save their life. If they're worth a billion to you, then go ahead and pay a billion dollars to save them. But, don't tax me to use my money on something that I see as extremely wasteful.

Lastly, know that should you decide to admit that you were wrong about burning money not being at all the same as burning products that you buy with the money (the latter hurts society, the former doesn't), then I will move on quietly and think better of you rather than worse. When I'm in such situations, I often deny that I was wrong and try to find a way to think that I was at least partially correct. But when one does this, one does not learn. It is better to admit that you didn't realize that when Farmer burns the house down then there no longer is a second house for Builder to buy with his 9 dollars. Far better....

[Guest]

Right, I expected you to decline because you already know what contributions Einstein makes for society. So let's change the circumstances a little. Suspend you disbelief, if you are able, and imagine yourself as a dirt-poor man living in 1905. A man offers you one million dollars (an astronomical sum at that time) to kill some man named Albert Einstein. Einstein is a nobody. Would you still decline to kill him? What's the difference between the two situations?

Yes I would still decline to kill him. You got my reasoning wrong for the first situation. I would decline killing Einstein not because I know he will be of extraordinary value to society, but because I believe that he is of positive value. I think most "nobodys" are still of positive value also, thus I would still decline to kill the nobody in 1905. From my above post you hopefully learned that me getting a million dollars from this guy in 1905 would not be increasing the wealth of society. Rather, it would just be transferring this other guy's wealth into my possession. Thus, killing the nobody who is most likely of positive value (not necessarily very high value like Einstein... just positive... i.e. I'd rather have him alive than dead) would hurt society. I would not hurt society just to transfer some of society's wealth into my possession. Thus, I still decline because the difference in the two situations is that in the first situation I would be hurting society a lot by killing Einstein and in this "nobody" situation I would be hurting society a little.

Now though, I will mention that if this millionaire was an idiot and I didn't support doing what he does with his money, then I likely would agree to destroy a chair (for example) even though destroying that chair is diminishing society's material possessions (and thus value). The reason would be because I would think that I could use the rich guy's money to better society X amount better than he can use it to better society, where X is greater than the value of the chair. Thus, while hurting society by destroying the chair, I would still most likely help society in the long run by spending the money more wisely than the idiot who said he'd give me a million dollars to assassinate the chair. Final Note: It would take a very extreme wealthy man (impractically extreme) for me to replace "chair" with an ordinary, average human in this paragraph. Thus, I wouldn't murder a person just because I think I could spend the money that I receive better than the rich person who offered to give me a million dollars if I murdered an ordinary person. This is because I doubt that the rich person would waste the money tremendously by doing things like paying a billion dollars for a single baby's medical operation. And, even if I did think that he would be so wasteful, it is still his money and thus I would still allow him to spend it on a billion dollar operation rather than accept his offer and assassinate an ordinary person who doesn't require a billion dollar operation to survive.

[Izzy]

One more quick thing, because I think it makes your point clearer than destroying New York. If you could see into the future and know that Katrina would destroy New Orleans, or that the hurricane that hit Haiti and the flood that hit Pakistan would do immense amounts of damage, and the only method of prevention would be killing a randomly selected person (quite possibly among the people to die anyway), I still wouldn't do it. These people died natural deaths and were the victims of chance. There's no reason for anyone to play God (it's an analogy - don't go there) and choose who lives and who dies just because the outcome may be better one way or another. Use the Force is your name, after all, let's get a little Jedi-y here. (If you're sith, disregard this, but if you're not, remember as a Jedi it's your responsibility to maintain peace, not shatter. It save people, not kill them - no matter the cost. If you're neither Jedi nor Sith, care to be neither, and think this is silly, you should have picked a different username, because you're not doing it justice.)

Emotion, yet peace. I think you've made it clear why, from an emotional standview, the things you're saying make sense to you. You're baffled by everyone's stupidity, and would prefer if people that don't benefit society (and therefore you) didn't exist. This is an emotional response to stimulus I can't even imagine. However, over come whatever you're fighting and struggle for peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge. We can call each other igorant back and forth, and we'll never get anywhere. The second you realize this and that ignorance will always exist, you've transcended your ignorance and have suddenly become a notch more knowledgeable. Simply ignoring facts that do not fit with your viewpoint is foolish.

Passion, yet serenity. You're clearly passionate about your position, but you need to control it and chill with the insults. I myself called you an idiot earlier (well, indirectly), and I apolize (the tenets are easy to forget sometimes >_>). Use your emotions, but wisely, lest you act rashly and lose objectivity. Then, instead of a creative discussion, the thread turns into spite and hate, loosely hiding behind the guise of politics. (...The way of the Sith. )

Chaos, yet harmony. Eh, nothing really to elaborate on this one.

Death, yet the Force. This goes with what I was saying earlier. Death exists, but none of us should go out and cause it, and honestly, we should try to actively combat it. Killing should only take place when necessary, like to prevent a death the person themself will cause beyond a reasonable doubt (ie, going back in time and assassinating Hitler) or in times of self-defence (Obi-won vs. Darth Maul). So even if sacrificing a random person could stop natural disasters, doing so is as barbaric as what the Aztecs did, and I really think we're at that point in history where we've overcome such primative tribalism.

[Izzy]

So as you all hopefully finally realize, I was correct in pointing out that burning the money wouldn't get rid of its value.

Wow, seriously? Okay. You just finished high school, right? Go withdraw all the money our parents have saved for uni., create a pretty piece of art work with it, and set it on fire. Be sure to let us know how that went for you.

[Izzy]

What if Einstein needed a heart surgeory you knew he couldn't afford? Would you support tax payers paying for his need? If you say yes, it's only because you can't remove the bias you have for Einstein. Anyone can be an Einstein, hell the dude didn't even talk until he was six and then worked in the post office.

*edit*

It's also likely the random person that would die to save the buildings would be someone just as cool as Einstein, like Stephen Hawking or Black Francis. Regardless of who it is, they're someone's family, and mean the world to someone. Do you realize how absurd your proposition sounds now/

Edited August 12, 2010 by Izzy

[Guest]

Are you incapable of reading, or just logically following one from one statement to another? Money > ashes. That's why, had I not burned that money, I would have a new Macbook. But I did, so I'm left with a valueless pile of ashes. The cashier can't accept my payment because the value of what I'm trying to pay with has been entirely destroyed when it was set alight.

Adding a little to unreality's example.

Farmer: I want someone to build me a house! I'll pay them $9!

Builder: Aye sir, I'll gladly do it.

Farmer: Hooray, let me pay you in advance. *pays*

Farmer: *builds house*

Money in play: $9 in the hands of the builder, and a house valued at $9 for the farmer, which he can sell.

So, with this exchange, the networth of the country has actually gone up because a new house was created.

If the builder burns his money, the farmer still has $9 worth of materials, and vice versa. If both burn the money and house, then it's like nothing ever happend, and the farmer is out $9 and the builder is out several hours of hard labor. My point? The burning of products, be it money or lightsabers, makes them valueless. If I buy a Macbook and then burn it, the money, now in the hands of the Apple Corporation is still in play and can be used to do other things. So.. at everything you said.

On to debt. I'm not saying it isn't serious, but I'm saying every sensible person realizes there are more serious things to worry about. It's just /money/. I'm sick of people think everything revolves around money and I'm sick of living in a system that makes things impossible without money. Yeah, it's an awesome way to trade, and I personally can't think of a better system, but it's disgusting. Money should be knocked down a peg and seen as what it is - an item for trading. And then people need to be seen as items that cannot be traded. UtF, how much would you sell your children into slavery for? $1 billion? Two? Okay, maybe not your children, because you love them. Someone else's children? The children at the orphanage? "But Izzy, there labor would never be worth $1 billion." Ah, but what if they're working the cocaine fields down in Colombia? Okay, let's say you find a child, and our magical glass ball allowing us to see in the future shows that where he currently lives, he'll never contribute more than $5000 to society. However, if you sell him into slavery, he'll contribute $499,999, exactly. Do you sell him, knowing full well his new life will suuuck? Or, if he would contribute $5000 to society as he is, would you sell him for $5001? $5002? Just trying to figure out where you stand on all this.

That would explain why nothing you say makes sense.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to reinforce my view that, "[my] views as superior to [yours]. that are smarter than [you], that [you] don't know what I'm talking about" (), but.. wtf? Giving people jobs stimulates the economy and keeps the money flowing so it doesn't sit around in banks. It decreases our unemployment rate and makes people self-sustaining so they don't have to rely on government welfare to survive. It boosts the net-worth of our nation.

Please go take an economics class and come back when you understand something as basic as the importance of jobs.

A job is not inherently helpful. If the job is to dig a hole and then fill it back in, then that's actually hurting society. It would be better to just give the person money as a gift and let them do something productive with their time instead.

Regarding the rest of your message, I think I have already answered most of the problems with what you said in my other posts, specifically the last post on page 37. Read that and then tell me if you still don't understand why burning the money is not at all the same as using the money to buy the Apple computers to destroy.

Also, I believe my first post on page 38 of this thread answers your questions about why I wouldn't kill people who I value positively (like my kids or randomly selected humans or ordinary average humans, etc) for money. I'll also add here that even if I value someone negatively I wouldn't necessary kill them either due to things like consequences with the law enforcement, etc, and also simply because of doubt about whether I actually value them negatively. Also realize that if there is someone who is doing things that I don't support, etc, then that doesn't necessarily mean that I value them negatively. The vast majority of people I value positively.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Use the Force

[Guest]

One more quick thing, because I think it makes your point clearer than destroying New York. If you could see into the future and know that Katrina would destroy New Orleans, or that the hurricane that hit Haiti and the flood that hit Pakistan would do immense amounts of damage, and the only method of prevention would be killing a randomly selected person (quite possibly among the people to die anyway), I still wouldn't do it. These people died natural deaths and were the victims of chance. There's no reason for anyone to play God (it's an analogy - don't go there) and choose who lives and who dies just because the outcome may be better one way or another. Use the Force is your name, after all, let's get a little Jedi-y here. (If you're sith, disregard this, but if you're not, remember as a Jedi it's your responsibility to maintain peace, not shatter. It save people, not kill them - no matter the cost. If you're neither Jedi nor Sith, care to be neither, and think this is silly, you should have picked a different username, because you're not doing it justice.)

Emotion, yet peace. I think you've made it clear why, from an emotional standview, the things you're saying make sense to you. You're baffled by everyone's stupidity, and would prefer if people that don't benefit society (and therefore you) didn't exist. This is an emotional response to stimulus I can't even imagine. However, over come whatever you're fighting and struggle for peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge. We can call each other igorant back and forth, and we'll never get anywhere. The second you realize this and that ignorance will always exist, you've transcended your ignorance and have suddenly become a notch more knowledgeable. Simply ignoring facts that do not fit with your viewpoint is foolish.

Passion, yet serenity. You're clearly passionate about your position, but you need to control it and chill with the insults. I myself called you an idiot earlier (well, indirectly), and I apolize (the tenets are easy to forget sometimes >_>). Use your emotions, but wisely, lest you act rashly and lose objectivity. Then, instead of a creative discussion, the thread turns into spite and hate, loosely hiding behind the guise of politics. (...The way of the Sith. )

Chaos, yet harmony. Eh, nothing really to elaborate on this one.

Death, yet the Force. This goes with what I was saying earlier. Death exists, but none of us should go out and cause it, and honestly, we should try to actively combat it. Killing should only take place when necessary, like to prevent a death the person themself will cause beyond a reasonable doubt (ie, going back in time and assassinating Hitler) or in times of self-defence (Obi-won vs. Darth Maul). So even if sacrificing a random person could stop natural disasters, doing so is as barbaric as what the Aztecs did, and I really think we're at that point in history where we've overcome such primative tribalism.

I'm not a jedi.... I'm just a fan of the movies/books/etc.