Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics General Stuff What is wealth? How is it made? How is it accounted?

Part way through - fascinating stuff!

Thanks for the support, but realize it's just another step forward towards a hoped for "new model". The current challenge is to recruit more allies and folks to help carry the load of implementation.

As Walt Whitman said:

I had to go back and re-read the whole thread as I had forgotten why I started it. Re-entry by following up on the grant submission post was just that - but fortunately, it's still relevant to the topic.

A major drawback to the system of capitalism as far as my "mission" is concerned, is that I am forced to spend a great deal of my time off-mission raising money to keep the progress going, and to support myself personally. In a Yooge irony, if I had Trump's skills at con artistry (which is generally regarded as a talent for "capitalism), I'd be rolling in dough - but I wouldn't have any of the drive or skillset to develop the "New Model". As more irony, I could make a case that Donald Trump has never created any real wealth, and in fact has done a great deal of wealth destruction, if you look at the full set of account books.

I think that the core problem with hard-core capitalism is that it instills fear and insecurity into our lives (what if I can't "make a living"?), which tends to morph into an irrational psychosis of greed. I see that in myself. More is better. But the rat race for security is virtually never ending, and it consumes incredible amounts of time and resources. This is the reason I am a natural supporter of universal healthcare and some kind of general basic survival support for everyone.

PIA a nice picture of what modest wealth is that can be obtained via a tame and sane practice of "capitalism", that seems to describe what a safe and secure basic existence would look like:
I think about how much further along this New Model mission would be if I didn't have to "make a living" and "raise capital" to keep it viable. Of course, if we had such a culture, it would be much easier to create the New Model...

Trump has one skill - gaslighting. This is a skill of confusion. You take a subject then express every and all possible sides to that argument (with a lot of maybees, perhaps, do you thinks, and nonsense) until the listener is so confused they gladly let the gaslighter tell you the answer that is right and your confusion allows that to happen. There is a book on this. You can also google "trump gaslighting" for more information on this one.

Boredom mostly.

I see a physical reality underlaying everything that has laws about increasing entropy in entire systems: In economics, just like in the physical world, the wealth of the entire systems tends to get diluted. Our "wealth" in this system can be considered as all the energy available on this planet. (A few people are trying to expand that "wealth" by working on stuff like orbital power satellites and hydrogen fusion, but right now, this is all we have.) If you distribute an equal share to everybody, then we all just get poorer, plus it gets more diluted as population grows over the years. A comfortable future in the short run, but bleak in the long run.

You can run counter to increasing entropy locally, by increasing the entropy somewhere else. For example, you can burn fossil fuel to do stuff but that puts CO2 in the atmosphere and decreases oil reserves. Both highly entropic. But the stuff you do with that energy decreases your local entropy by building things, heating houses above ambient, etc.

For the future, efforts to increase the scope of the system (space and fusion again) are the only thing that holds off the inevitable decline into an environment that can't sustain human life. The only way to do such stuff is to use some of that wealth to do those things. That's the function of capitalism, and why equitable sharing means the end of the human race.

Not that sharing is bad! Ideally, everybody would have whatever they need for a long and happy life. But we need to make sure that progress continues if we want a future. What then must we do? I do plan to give away everything. But I'm going to wait until my own long and happy life is over, and try not to be a burden on anyone else in the process.

Uh huh....

Some kind of grand unification theory that centers capitalism lest we have entropy.

I read this and think of the anthropocene period underway now as it relates to wealth and the death cult of capitalism.

For example, the excesses that flow from the broken brained rich, Oxfams report on the outsize destruction the top 1% are having on the environment.

Carbon emissions of richest 1 percent more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity

I’m not sure, but it would appear that all those extra 4K plasma sets and extra vacation homes with infinity edge pools are a function of escaping the gravitational pull of entropy?

Or, in other words, capitalism’s job is to resist entropy and Its consequences by expanding into space after soiling it’s own nest?

To me, placing property over people and elevating ourselves above nature is the challenge of our day. Reintroducing the wealth of the commons and communities may need to make a comeback. Psychopathic Capitalism, and its lubricant, consumerism, appears to be doing more to bring about resource exhaustion and species extinction than anything else.

Congrats on the grant Logs.
I don’t see us getting public transport thru the NGO industrial complex but it’s heartening to see your biochar get funded. A bright spot for sure.

Regenerative agriculture is going to be so important to our future and char should be a big contributor. I can’t imagine the satisfaction of being involved in that kind of work.

A good repeat client of my wife and I are heirloom seed farmers. They’re in their mid forties and are no till regenerative organic apostles. Doing quit well at the moment. Always fascinating to learn about their involvement with soil and seeds. They are driven people on a mission. I’m guessing your in that same camp of purpose. Right on!

You kind missed the point: Increasing entropy is a physical law. You can't escape it. It always happens. Life (in the biological sense) is always a shortcut over non-life in consuming energy faster from the external system, to benefit the local system. Claiming that economics can ignore physical laws is an exercise in futility.

Not that I'm a big fan of brain-dead capitalism, or rich people getting laws passed to maintain and grow their family fortunes down through the generations. I would not mind a 100% inheritance tax on estates over a million dollars. But we need some smart capitalism so we get long-term solutions. That's long-term thinking instead of short-term.

We need the Elon Musk's to get people driving electric cars instead of burning fossil fuels, and building space access since our government has given up on that. Hydrogen fusion is going to save us from global climate change by eliminating the need for fossil fuels, and making it economically feasible to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Amassing capital lets us do thing like that, much in the same way amassing capital made it possible for European nobility to build the great cathedrals. I'm sure building those cathedrals did not improve the lives of the peasants, but it did show people what was possible besides back-breaking dirt farming for 40 years followed by an early grave. Without those cathedrals we would all still be farming for the local lord, and dying en masse from drought, famine, and pestilence.

Objective, adj. 1) How every subject characterizes their opinion.