Quote from: tipon on April 30, 2014, 11:25:29 pm

oh sorry , i think i should have started with my definition of capitalism, here we go:

For me capitalism is our actual system based on infinite growth.
Infinite growth is the esence of capitalism and its result from competition.
Competition in the system impose to each capitalist the necessity of growing

tipon, You can't stop people from being competitive or motivated by self interest and you seem to think this is the root problem that leads to "infinite growth" which is your definition of capitalism.  I don't think the definition makes much sense.  Bytemaster said to define capitalism by the actions that lead to it, so you say the action that leads to it is competition.  Well, competition can't be avoided, people are not inherently altruistic otherwise you might just give away all your money.

You need always more oil.
Can we change this using block chain technologies?

That is a question for Dan.
Dan can you find a way to use blockchains as fuel/and main ingredient for pretty much everything?
...
I do not think the Prophet will be enough here, you will need the God herself, but let’s wait.

tipon, You seem to be thinking of growth in terms of environmental impact, natural resources consumed etc.

Do you think if people were cooperating in a "non capitalist" way that there won't be growth?  Would there still be population growth?

Maybe what you mean by capitalism causing growth is how others have mentioned that inflation can cause people to spend more recklessly because their money will be worth less tomorrow than it is today so you basically have to spend it now and this might be wasteful.

I think a lot of growth in terms of natural resources consumed is caused by population growth; perhaps this would happen regardless of capitalism.  A lot of other species grow exponentially until they max out their resources, habitat, food sources etc. and then stabilize

As I've said on this forum in the past, inflation contributes to the thug mentality.

I define the thug mentality as the same sort of mentality you're talking about where people have to compete to survive, where resources are artificially made scarce to force people to compete using the most ruthless means they can, why does this happen?

People say inflation is a good thing because it causes people to spend money. But using inflation to cause people to spend money means people are going to be on a constant treadmill which requires them to earn money as fast (or faster) than they spend it. It makes it so people can only think about short term profits, it provides an incentive for people (corporations) to act psychopathic.

It's not capitalism which is the problem, it's the form of it that we have. And the reason we have this form of capitalism is because it was forced on us all without the option of letting us choose. People don't choose to be born rich or poor, nor do they choose to be desperate, but when people are both poor and desperate they do anything necessary to resolve their conditions.

Rich people who have property/wealth will do anything necessary to protect it. This is why rich people tend to want strong property rights to protect themselves from the have nots who want to either use the government to tax and redistribute the wealth to themselves, or who want to burglarize them.

The problem isn't the "ism", and it's not the people, it's the culture and the system which shapes the behavior. If you have capitalism but only social corporations are allowed to exist then all of the problems you mentioned wouldn't be problems with capitalism.

So my advice to you is to look at Bitshares as a politically neutral technology (just a tool like a hammer). Next look at how that politically neutral technology can help you solve a social problem. Focus on social enterprises, social capitalism, social entrepreneurship, because the Bitshares community is working hard to help empower people who want to use the tools of capitalism to solve the social ills of the world.

In fact, that is why I'm interested in Bitshares. I want to see a better world, and just going with the program set for us by the system is a path to failure for anyone who wants a better world. The system we have now isn't designed for producing a better world and the ism you use is irrelevant. If we used socialism then the socialism under this culture, using this system we have now, would be just as broken.

The reason I make that strong claim is because I think the source of all of these sorts of problems is that most people still are stuck in the industrial age with their thinking, their culture, their systems, institutions, schools, and until they move into the information age there isn't going to be positive change. Decentralized autonomous cooperatives will force the outdated thinking to adapt to the technological innovation and over time thinking will change just as it has with the Internet.

Tipon, do you really think you're going to get anywhere around here denouncing capitalism? Have you not noticed that capitalism is a popular word on these forums?

Here's my suggestion: come up with some other word for the evil system you're describing. The word "capitalism" has too many meanings. To you, it means greedy unsustainable growth and development, but to a lot of people around here it means something much less sinister: something like "the concept that people should be able to own things freely without someone else violently taking them away."

I'm just trying to give you some friendly advice to help you get your point across better. I hate seeing people shooting themselves in the foot through poor choice of words.

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