Population growth ideals, wealth distribution

[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Demon767]

I glad i read your TL:DR post

[GORKHALI]

No babies = no pension when we all become old.

not many will live longer to enjoy their pension as europen r renewning nearly every year pension ages,how long do you think you can live ? nobody knows but the life must go on eventhough the hell break loose,no matter wat and we need younger generations to move on.

[Demon767]

^ +1

[Masacree]

Amazes me that Smokaz is actually smart.

Being a lowly senior high student, I don't have much input to offer other then "the world is collectively overpopulated, and a nice war or worldwide natural disaster to knock down the numbers a peg would probably be welcomed in a generation or two."

WHAT?

fucking volskinator

fucking nuts

[Unkn0wn]

I for one welcome our new alien overlords

[Nug]

I for one welcome our new alien overlords

mexicans ?

[Mysthalin]

On the case of wealth redistribution.

It is well-known in economics that although - on average, people have been objectively getting better off in the West over the past 40-50 years - weirdly enough, they have not actually become any happier. The reason for this is rather simple - actually. People only really value extra money if it involves having more than the people in their immediate vicinity. Basically you need to be able to flaunt your wealth - or at least have someone to compare your wealth to in order to understand how much better (or worse) off you actually are. Although equalizing wealth would imply that nobody is taking a strong hit in their happiness just because they are poorer - it brings up the can of worms that some people will feel worse because they are working harder jobs with longer hours and only getting the same as some sob that cleans toilets. That's on top of forgoing the gross happiness attained through differentials in welfare - so, on average, the society will become less happy if it becomes perfectly equal.

Furthermore - perfect equality means nobody has an incentive to actually work any harder or to strive to achieve anything other than the bare minimum required of them. Take a society of 1 million people. Say, you manage to work so hard you create an extra £1,000,000 of added wealth in the total societal pot. Since everything is distributed equally - that means you'll only see one additional pound you can personally spend. If even creating an extra £1,000,000 a year in a society as small as 1,000,000 people will only gain you 1 additional pound in spending - do you think people will try to make an extra £50,000 in a society of 62,000,000 people? Nope - perfect equality and inability to reap your own gains destroys ANY incentive to actually try and achieve anything other than the bare minimum required to share in the societal pot.

In a less simple and mathematical way - that's what happened to the Soviet Union once Brezhnev came into power and the entire country was only interested in ticking the boxes, rather than actually doing shit. Brezhnev's stagnation period is, IMO, what killed the Soviet Union. Read up on it if you're interested.

[PonySlaystation]

Socialism ≠ Communism

Social Welfare ≠ Planned Economy

Also your theory about happiness is complete bullocks. Compared to life in the early 1900s when people worked 16 hour days for low pay, no vacation or work benefits etc etc etc. Obviously life improved a lot since then and people became happier but after that there was no major change, do you know why? because wealth is not a measure of happiness. As long as people can afford basic survival stuff, don't have a slave job and also have time and money for fun things, people will be happy.

[8thRifleRegiment]

That is all

[Mysthalin]

Read what I said without the red over-loading your brain, Pony.

I said people ARE OBJECTIVELY BETTER OFF, but judging by questionnaires given then and now - they don't feel any happier. And I was talking about the comparison between now and 40-50 years ago - not the turn of the century, as data on happiness only exists from that time period. Is there, possibly, a cut-off point only after which people don't start feeling better off? Very possibly - and research into developing countries could give us an answer. As far as the West is concerned for the past 40-50 years, and assuming the same trend of general happiness - extreme equality would only result in a reduction in overall happiness.

[Demon767]

Okay Volski, you can die first.

Tomorrow a new war will begin in your region, and guess what, you're fucked.

[PonySlaystation]

extreme equality would only result in a reduction in overall happiness.

I'm pretty sure that very poor, homeless people etc aren't very happy. I also don't think that people who are richer than the average are happier than the average middle-class person.

So if there was equality then these people who are really bad off would be a lot better off and as a result overall happiness would increase.

[Unkn0wn]

What Myst forgets though is that communism doesn't necessarily strife to make everyone happy anyway. Happiness is not only very difficult to measure, it's also entirely irrelevant of personal wealth. Instead, happiness is more closely related to personal needs, i.e Maslow's pyramid. With the basic needs fulfilled, anyone can be happy. (Provided they don't live in a system like ours that glorifies consumption and the possession of things that no one objectively has a need for)

If people do feel better off now, it's primarily because more people (in the west anyway) have acquired that 'middle class living standard', which gives them a higher fulfilment of personal needs. Stating that equality necessarily leads to a loss of happiness is probably an exaggeration, given the fact that there are examples (Scandinavian countries) of more equal societies also being generally more happy. (Though this is no 'extreme equality', which I agree would probably not work out as great)

[Mysthalin]

I'm pretty sure that very poor, homeless people etc aren't very happy. I also don't think that people who are richer than the average are happier than the average middle-class person.

So if there was equality then these people who are really bad off would be a lot better off and as a result overall happiness would increase.

It's what you would think - and it's intuitive to think so - but it doesn't fit the data - and people don't seem to become much happier regardless of their welfare being better.

Like pretty much anything in Economics - I'm sure that there exists a "golden point" of equality (let's arbitrarily say a GINI coefficient of 0.3) where gross happiness is maximised - any more equality and people stop seeing the point, any less and they get pissed off with "that one guy" getting too much of the pot.

[Nug]

it's also entirely irrelevant of personal wealth.

Actualy it is.

A homeless person without shelter and food and basic income cannot even begin to be happy because he strives to survive. Hapiness or lack of it emerges when the basic needs are met and it's dependant on the person.

So having no wealth is even below the level of 'happy or not', because the person spends all his time just to survive.

[Sachaztan]

On the case of wealth redistribution.

It is well-known in economics that although - on average, people have been objectively getting better off in the West over the past 40-50 years - weirdly enough, they have not actually become any happier. The reason for this is rather simple - actually. People only really value extra money if it involves having more than the people in their immediate vicinity. Basically you need to be able to flaunt your wealth - or at least have someone to compare your wealth to in order to understand how much better (or worse) off you actually are. Although equalizing wealth would imply that nobody is taking a strong hit in their happiness just because they are poorer - it brings up the can of worms that some people will feel worse because they are working harder jobs with longer hours and only getting the same as some sob that cleans toilets. That's on top of forgoing the gross happiness attained through differentials in welfare - so, on average, the society will become less happy if it becomes perfectly equal.

Furthermore - perfect equality means nobody has an incentive to actually work any harder or to strive to achieve anything other than the bare minimum required of them. Take a society of 1 million people. Say, you manage to work so hard you create an extra £1,000,000 of added wealth in the total societal pot. Since everything is distributed equally - that means you'll only see one additional pound you can personally spend. If even creating an extra £1,000,000 a year in a society as small as 1,000,000 people will only gain you 1 additional pound in spending - do you think people will try to make an extra £50,000 in a society of 62,000,000 people? Nope - perfect equality and inability to reap your own gains destroys ANY incentive to actually try and achieve anything other than the bare minimum required to share in the societal pot.

In a less simple and mathematical way - that's what happened to the Soviet Union once Brezhnev came into power and the entire country was only interested in ticking the boxes, rather than actually doing shit. Brezhnev's stagnation period is, IMO, what killed the Soviet Union. Read up on it if you're interested.

So much wrong about your post I scarcely know where to begin.

1. "People only really value extra money if it involves having more than the people in their immediate vicinity. Basically you need to be able to flaunt your wealth"

Absolute bollocks. First of all money is just one of MANY factors for what makes people happy. Second your "insight" into how money makes you happy is just bizarre. Third, money only has an impact up to a certain level where you have enough money for it to no longer be an issue for everyday life.
http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Income_Happiness/Happiness_Money_Summary.pdf

2. " perfect equality means nobody has an incentive to actually work any harder or to strive to achieve anything other than the bare minimum required of them."

Outdated and wrong theory about what makes people work better. It works to some degree for pure manual labour but barely (or not at all) for anything more advanced than that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

3. "perfect equality"

I can only assume that you mean identical pay for everyone no matter how difficult and demanding the job is from the way you talk about it. Not only does pretty much no one think this is a good idea (making it a strawman argument), it's also not the only kind of equality. Equality in the sense that you get the same pay no matter what nationality, gender, social class etc you are as long as you do the same work, is very much important for a healthy society.

[Killer344]

Actualy it is.

A homeless person without shelter and food and basic income cannot even begin to be happy because he strives to survive. Hapiness or lack of it emerges when the basic needs are met and it's dependant on the person.

So having no wealth is even below the level of 'happy or not', because the person spends all his time just to survive.

Poor nug, too muchz data to proccesz, *brain damage*.

If you would'nt have stopped reading at the first sentence, this post wouldn't exist.

[DarkSoldierX]

2. " perfect equality means nobody has an incentive to actually work any harder or to strive to achieve anything other than the bare minimum required of them."

Outdated and wrong theory about what makes people work better. It works to some degree for pure manual labour but barely (or not at all) for anything more advanced than that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Wheres the sources for that? I searched a bit and I fail to find the studies described of in the video. In order for me to believe this(First half of video) I need to see the research data.

3. "perfect equality"

I can only assume that you mean identical pay for everyone no matter how difficult and demanding the job is from the way you talk about it. Not only does pretty much no one think this is a good idea (making it a strawman argument), it's also not the only kind of equality. Equality in the sense that you get the same pay no matter what nationality, gender, social class etc you are as long as you do the same work, is very much important for a healthy society.

Theres a few retarded mongs here and there that think perfect equality is a great idea to implement now.

But in all seriousness communism is the perfect system, but in order for it to work humanity has to be mature enough for it. And humanity is very far from getting that to that point.

[Unkn0wn]

Haha, nug his post baffled me

[PonySlaystation]

But in all seriousness communism is the perfect system, but in order for it to work humanity has to be mature enough for it. And humanity is very far from getting that to that point.

No it's not, the government can't control the economy without organizational problems.