patrick.net

There's no Chomsky like Noam Chomsky, there's no Chomsky I know. . .

Dan8267 says

Morality is a set of values or principles that aid in cooperative social living and avoiding conflict and harm. Morality is prevalent throughout animal species that live in group and depend on cooperation for survival.

Good is behavior that is cooperative and helps the survival or interests of the group or other individuals. Evil is behavior that is defective (game theory term) and harms the survival or interests of the group or other individuals.

Well, I guess you were wrong. I can define evil quite easily.

I knew you would try to define evil. I am glad you did, you actually didn't do too bad a job of it. So to Dan evil behavior has a negative impact on the survival or interests of the group or other individuals.

Well Dan I hate to point this out but every human exhibits evil behavior. Every single one of us at times does things that harm ourselves or the people around us. According to your definition we are all evil, or at least we all choose evil behavior on a relatively routine basis.

I agree with you.

Oh by the way so does the Bible: Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Dan whether you realize it or not your math is evidence that the Bible is true.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

That's why he defines the coal industry, that formed the foundation of the Industrial Age, as evil.

I said no such thing, liar.

Dan8267 says

For example, the coal industry is fucking evil.

A direct quote. I'm pretty sure you don't know what the truth is anymore. Dan/Pinnochio, your nose keeps growing and your pants are on fire.

Dan8267 says

Ask any pre-pubescent child if stealing medicine to save a person's life is wrong, and he will say yes without hesitation.

Good point, where does that innate sense of morality come from?

Dan8267 says

You don't give a gun to a child and tell him to decide who's the bad guy that needs to be shot.

Well said Dan, what you fail to realize is that when it comes to morality, you are the child in this scenario. You defined the coal industry as evil and then claimed you did not. Sounds like the actions of a child caught with crayons when his mommy found writing on the wall.

Dan8267 says

The costs of goods and services should be paid by the users of those goods and services, not by other people.

I agree. How are you going to achieve this in a world where China and other non-first world nations are free to pollute and then sell their cheap goods to the rest of the world?

Also, how do you adequately count the cost of every single thing. What is the true cost to society of a marijuana joint? What is the true cost to society of a plane ride to New York? What is the true cost to society of boinking a hoe? What is the true cost to society of overeating? What is the true cost to society of planting/watering your grass vs. having a rock garden? What is the true cost to society of any number of things?

And who gets to decide the true costs?

We need a model that works before you can go trying to set prices, and by the way artificially setting prices is the exact opposite of a free market. In a free market (which is closer to what we have now than what you are describing with carbon taxation fantasies) China is allowed to pollute the world and dump their goods on the market below the true cost to society.

Dan8267 says

Good god... The people in an industry are either moral or immoral, and the owners of coal mines are immoral. They do not care about the death and destruction they cause, only about profit.

@Dan8267 Mining coal is simply the process of removing a rock from the ground and selling it to someone else for more than what it cost you to produce it. It is the same thing a farmer does with her crops, a truck driver does with his time/truck/gas and a hooker does with her body. In Dans world which of these is moral? Can you really use math to define people as moral or immoral based on occupation?

This I gotta know! Since most homeless shelters I know are run by faith based groups are they not immoral in Dans world?

FortWayne says

Dan8267 says

There are certainly industries with way more evil in them than others, so yes. For example, the coal industry is fucking evil.

Way to go hate on hard working Americans Dan. Your deep hatred for America and god seriously blinds you.

I was talking about the coal mine owners, and yes, they are evil. They bribe senators to prevent laws that would keep these fat cats from polluting. Coal pollution causes methylmercury poisoning, which causes birth defects, neurological damage in children and adults, and even death. It even kills unborn babies, you know, the ones you pretend to care about. Coal company executives are evil. They care more about making an easy buck then about the lives of others including children. That's evil.

So don't give me any shit that I hate America. If you cared as much about America as I do, you would oppose coal companies.

PeopleUnited says

Wow, that math sounds like magic mushrooms. Are you hitting the shrooms again Dan?

That's not a counter argument. It's dodging the issues.

PeopleUnited says

And who gets to decide the true costs?

Not who, what. The math determines it.

The cost of coal burning must include the cost of cleaning up all the pollution including methylmercury that gets into the ocean and most sea food. That alone would about $100 trillion dollars to the annual cost of burning coal. The fact that the world doesn't even have $100 trillion/yr to spend is the free market's way of telling you that we shouldn't be burning coal in the first place. It's not worth it.

The cost of burning coal should also include all the medical expenses and lost productivity due to health problems created by methylmercury poisoning. I don't know exactly how much that is, but I hear health care is expensive in the U.S.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

Wow, that math sounds like magic mushrooms. Are you hitting the shrooms again Dan?

That's not a counter argument. It's dodging the issues.

It's called humor. I retracted it so as not to distract you from my original post.

PeopleUnited says

Dan8267 says

Good god... The people in an industry are either moral or immoral, and the owners of coal mines are immoral. They do not care about the death and destruction they cause, only about profit.

@Dan8267 Mining coal is simply the process of removing a rock from the ground and selling it to someone else for more than what it cost you to produce it. It is the same thing a farmer does with her crops, a truck driver does with his time/truck/gas and a hooker does with her body. In Dans world which of these is moral? Can you really use math to define people as moral or immoral based on occupation?

This I gotta know! Since most homeless shelters I know are run by faith based groups are they not immoral in Dans world?

PeopleUnited says

China is allowed to pollute the world and dump their goods on the market below the true cost to society.

The answer to this is to first adopt national standards, then sign international treaties that require meeting environmental standards, human rights standards, and labor standards in exchange for entry into a market. We don't do business with countries that don't follow our banking standards, including hunting down tax evaders and terrorists. We should apply the same tactic to environmental, labor, and human rights standards. Money will motivate change.

PeopleUnited says

It's called humor.

Honey, that's not humor.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

It's called humor.

Honey, that's not humor.

Sweetheart, in my neck of the woods magic mushrooms are always funny.

It's not a technical victory, it's deliberately part of the Constitution, a compromise crafted after long and difficult debate among the Framers, to replace an inadequate Continental Congress with a Federal Consititution.

We don't, and never had, national popular votes decide Presidental elections, ever.
Dan8267 says

We should apply the same tactic to environmental, labor, and human rights standards. Money will motivate change.

Except that defeats the purpose of the Trade Deals in the first place. Wall Street and Multinationals are pushing the Trade Deals for the exact opposite reason: To keep out enviro, labor, and hr standards (while enforcing IP to the maximum) so they can increase profits by moving abroad. And politicians neither write nor negotiate, but lobbyists and executives, as we saw with Michael Froman of Citigroup as Chief Trade Negotiator in the last Administration.

What's even more funny is the politicians pretend these bills have protections. My favorite was the "Guaranteed $1/day" in the TPP. $1 was the absolute poverty line 20 years ago. Yet it was called the Gold Standard, besides "There Is No Alternative".

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

China is allowed to pollute the world and dump their goods on the market below the true cost to society.

The answer to this is to first adopt national standards, then sign international treaties that require meeting environmental standards, human rights standards, and labor standards in exchange for entry into a market. We don't do business with countries that don't follow our banking standards, including hunting down tax evaders and terrorists. We should apply the same tactic to environmental, labor, and human rights standards. Money will motivate change.

Adoption of national standards without international ageeement in place first would be an impediment to this pipe dream scenario. And money is what motivates China to pollute in the first place. How are you going to hold them accountable? Threaten not to buy their shit? It is called a trade war Dan. Star Wars depicts what happens when a trade war breaks out. And China is getting ready for it.

Dan8267 says

Not who, what. The math determines it.

China has done the math. They have decided that inhumane working conditions and pollution are reasonable sacrifices to make to further the party leaders goals and insure maximum profits. The same is true in hellholes around the world. The United States, and even the entire western world combined doesn't have the influence to dictate global standards. In case you hadn't noticed the west has lost its grip on the world. We temporarily have the biggest stick, but our empire is not sustainable.

Furthermore there is plenty of injustice in our own nation/territories. We don't have a lot of credibility on morals in the eyes of much of the world.

Dan8267 says

The cost of coal burning must include the cost of cleaning up all the pollution including methylmercury that gets into the ocean and most sea food. That alone would about $100 trillion dollars to the annual cost of burning coal. The fact that the world doesn't even have $100 trillion/yr to spend is the free market's way of telling you that we shouldn't be burning coal in the first place. It's not worth it.

The cost of burning coal should also include all the medical expenses and lost productivity due to health problems created by methylmercury poisoning. I don't know exactly how much that is, but I hear health care is expensive in the U.S.

I'm actually in agreement that replacing coal as an energy source is a worthy goal for obvious reasons. But the question is does the economic costs of coal energy really exceed cumulative benefits? If we shut down every coal fired generator do you know what the immediate and cumulative economic impact would be? Is it possible that the negative impact of eliminating coal energy before there is a safer sustainable energy source in its place would be in excess of the cost of continuing to use it would be? It would seem that the market has spoken and the answer (for now) is yes.

Dan8267 says

I would prefer that we moved forward to clean energy. If you believe in free markets, then let the free market decide if fossil fuels are worth their true cost without shifting that cost to others. Require zero-pollution coal burning and include the entire expense of pollution in the price of coal. I guarantee you that the real cost of coal is far more than solar, wind, hydro-electric, or safe nuclear.

@Dan8267 I would prefer clean energy too, and the market is moving in that direction. Clean coal technology is improving. Wind and solar, are improving (all be it with heavy subsidies).

One of the realities of free markets is that people are free to sell their assets below cost. Any attempt to set prices is rigging the market. Even if the attempt to rig the market is to try to account for all costs it is still no longer a free market when buyer and seller are not free to settle on their own agreed price.

Dan8267 says

A person using the electric grid does not have any say whatsoever in choosing where the energy he uses comes from. Nor is it possible to give the individual that choice.

The individual does have the choice to limit/eliminate their use of energy from coal. That is what you are implying when you made the distinction between evil and good behavior, that individuals can choose between good and evil. You implied that burning coal for energy is evil. You said owners of coal mines are evil. By implication their customers are complicit. If you are on the grid you are a customer who pays people to burn coal for your benefit/enjoyment.

Dan8267 says

I was talking about the coal mine owners, and yes, they are evil. They bribe senators to prevent laws that would keep these fat cats from polluting. Coal pollution causes methylmercury poisoning, which causes birth defects, neurological damage in children and adults, and even death. It even kills unborn babies, you know, the ones you pretend to care about. Coal company executives are evil. They care more about making an easy buck then about the lives of others including children. That's evil.

Bombs kill babies. Obama dropped thousands of bombs a day. By your definition Obama is evil.

Or perhaps its not that simple. Coal and oil sparked the industrial revolution, saving millions and millions and millions of people from disease, starvation, and death. By your definition, you could define coal regulators as evil.

(This is also the flawed argument made by monstanto for genetically modified food that makes people sick BTW. "But, but, but... corn chips at $.20 a pop feed poor people all over the world.")

Signed: your local psychopath.

PeopleUnited says

But the question is does the economic costs of coal energy really exceed cumulative benefits?

Clearly the answer is an obvious yes. The economic costs of coal energy is literally in the trillions. It destroys a wealth base that took hundreds of millions of years to create, the ecosystem. It makes sea food poisonous. It increases health care costs. It reduces productivity of those with neurological problems caused by methylmercury poisoning. It causes birth defects and miscarriages.

And quite frankly, if you were a morally upstanding person, those things would be far more important than money anyway. A moral person does not accept harming people to make the economy better. Add to that the fact that coal actually hurts the economy, and you have both immorality and foolishness.

PeopleUnited says

If we shut down every coal fired generator do you know what the immediate and cumulative economic impact would be?

It would be whatever the free market makes it. Allowing pollution undermines the free market as it is essentially a subsidy given to inferior businesses that gives them an advantage over businesses that don't pollute or pollute less and distorts the market. It's no different than any other way of letting the government pick winners and losers. If I can steal your wife's jewelry and melt it down, I can sell gold bullion cheaper than my competitors. Pollution is theft. It is stealing the environmental wealth, which has real dollar value, and using that stolen wealth to sell products cheaper than your competitors who do not steal.

The coal problem could be eliminated quite easily. Cap the energy production of coal to what it is right now. Every month lower that cap by 5/12ths of a percentage point. Every year, the energy produced by coal is 5% less. In 20 years, coal is no longer burned. The free market will gradually rise the profitability of better alternatives. Resources will be allocated more efficiently. This is the free market solution. All opposition to this is opposition to free markets.

By the way, this also illustrates why capitalism and free markets are mutually exclusive. Capitalists will always undermine free markets.

PeopleUnited says

It would seem that the market has spoken

No. The market did not speak. It was silenced by capitalists. No one voted with dollars on burning coal. A few wealthy parasites who have control over our politicians dictated that whatever is most profitable to them, regardless of how much it impoverishes all other people, is the system that will be in place.

The free market solution is, by definition, to include the entire cost of coal burning in the cost of the energy produced by coal power plants rather than shifting those costs to unrelated businesses and non-consumers. There is no way someone would pay $10 per watt of power for coal when they could pay $0.70 per watt of power for solar. That's the free market. Making someone else pay $9.80 for your power just to make coal cheaper than solar is not the free market.
PeopleUnited says

Clean coal technology is improving.

No, it's not. Clean coal has always been a lie.

PeopleUnited says

Wind and solar, are improving (all be it with heavy subsidies).

It's albeit, not "all be it".

Coal is orders of magnitude more subsidized than wind and solar. Allow theft through pollution is a subsidy, and it's the most perverse kind of subsidy.

PeopleUnited says

One of the realities of free markets is that people are free to sell their assets below cost.

This is called price dumping, and it's illegal.

It's illegal because capitalists would use it to destroy competition and then raise prices once they have secured a market and prevented new entries. Once again, capitalism does not encourage efficient allocation of resources, competition, or free markets. It goes against these goals. This is why we need so many laws restricting capitalism. It's a losing battle though.

PeopleUnited says

You implied that burning coal for energy is evil.

I did not imply that. I stated that certain industries attract more evil-minded people than others. This is indisputable. Case example: Big Tobacco.

For decades Big Tobacco published false science stating that smoking did not cause lung cancer. They knew it did, but were willing to outright lie to people and suppress the truth even though many people were dying from smoking. They did this just for profit. This is evil, plain and simple. Poisoning people for money is murder, no matter how indirectly you do it.

Even today Big Tobacco commits the same evil acts in other countries. They market to children. They hold small countries hostage by using International trade agreements to prevent those countries from passing the same laws the U.S. passed about cigarette advertising and restrictions of sales to children, including children under eight years old. Are you telling me that a tobacco executive is not morally different than someone who works in child protective services or as a supermarket register clerk? That's bullshit. Not all jobs are equally morally reputable.

PeopleUnited says

You said owners of coal mines are evil. By implication their customers are complicit. If you are on the grid you are a customer who pays people to burn coal for your benefit/enjoyment.

This is bullshit.

The customers have no say in energy production. It is not a practical option to live off the grid, and symbolic gestures mean nothing.

I sick and tired of all the stupid false dichotomies people use when they have no rational argument against making gradual, continuous reforms. Life isn't all or nothing. Just because we cannot prevent all crimes from ever being committed, does not mean we should drop all laws and disband all police forces. That's a stupid argument. You implement policies that improve the situation. You keep striving to make things better, refining policies over time. That is how good government works.

CBOEtrader says

Bombs kill babies. Obama dropped thousands of bombs a day. By your definition Obama is evil.

Obama's behavior most certainly was evil, but not because of the shitty straw man argument you just crudely built. Obama didn't just drop bombs. He dropped bombs on civilian targets including innocent adolescents, children, babies, and pregnant women. He accepted "collateral damage" as being inconsequential. So yes, he was an evil president. Trump, Hillary Clinton, and all of the republican candidates in the past 20 years except Ron and Rand Paul are just as evil for this reason.

What? Did you think I was going to defend Obama? Just because you want to divide the world into only two camps, does not mean I have to join your camp or the left's.

CBOEtrader says

Coal and oil sparked the industrial revolution, saving millions and millions and millions of people from disease, starvation, and death.

And today they cause millions of death. What's good in one period is not good in all periods. One could make a case that burning coal was a good thing overall in the 19th century. Such an argument does not extend to the 21st century.

It was necessary for America to import people in the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Does that mean we should open our borders up today when there are 321 million Americans and not enough jobs? Somehow I doubt you'll accept the same argument regarding immigration. Our country was built by immigrants, therefore we should not cap immigration. Do you buy that argument?

jazz music says

@Dan8267:

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Dan8267 who is possibly the most conscientious and sincerely articulate man who ever lived.

Go ahead ask him something. He will give the best most founded answer he possibly can.

Truly an awesome reading experience.

Sincerest thanks to Dan8267!

Semi agree. yeah, this is an interesting convo. gj dan

jazz music says

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Dan8267 who is possibly the most conscientious and sincerely articulate man who ever lived.

Thanks. My secret is I just tell the truth, no matter how strange or unexpected that truth is. The universe does not conform to human expectations, but it is logically consistent and can be understood as long as you accept it for what it is rather than what you want it to be.