Coming to a town near you, like it or not!

[mashman]

I'm reminded of an interview I saw about 15 years ago of two Russian businessmen who were born after the October Revolution and grew up in Soviet Russia. They had bought state industries during the privatisation period ...

Both were asked about their workforce and both said that their work force was a lazy bunch of useless "people" (they used a very impolite word) .. one of them said "You have to beat the workers to get them to do anything".

I was shocked at the time .. that two people who had NOT grown up under a Capitalists system, with all it's inherent hegemonic processes, had that attitude towards the workforce ... 70 years of a Soviet state and the worst employer attitude resurfaces in an instant !!!

So .. I do like your ideas ... but I think that humans carry a very strong self-preservation gene (as do all life forms) which includes a competative element ... (watch a pack of animals competing wth other packs for territory) and with some intelligence aded, self-preservation and competativeness very very easily becomes self-interest ...

BUT I am not really as cynical as my communications make out (and yes, I do express cynical views outside this forum) .. I do have faith in the future - I have always actively tried to change the world .. firstly it was an active involvement in radical politics (Doh .. that's a very slow change process and very frustrating) and now work in education .. because every year I get new students whose lives I can directly impact on ... hopefully they will go out and create a better future ...

But hey .. I'm amused by the cynical old cunt stance I've adopted/become ... so that's unlikely to change

Socialism, capitalism, communism etc... are essentially all the same to me. Yes that sounds silly, but in regards to the function they were supposed to fulfil i.e. look after them pesky hoomans, they all used money as an incentive for an "easier" way to survive. Sure the political model may have been different, but essentially that doesn't really matter. Irrespective of governance structure, the each country has encountered the same economic issues. They all basically work in the same way.

You have a constant (money) in amongst a raft of societal, governmental, economic variables that have changed in the last several thousand years and yet they have all collapsed in on themselves in one way or another. Tis quite amusing that we're still defending the very thing that leads to the collapse of country's and their society's. No money = economic and societal turmoil.

So in the case of your rusky chums, I'd say that they were living in a capitalistic society, after all, they bought to own their factory. Following that and given that people will do anything for money, I'm not surprised that that behaviour reared its ugly head. However I reckon the story would have been extremely different in a financial less RBE. After all, if your employer was beating you and you could get shit for free, would you work for them? Yes I realise that that is a double edged sword... currently plenty of people don't work for that reason, but by far a majority do along with suffering shit employers. I know I do sometimes and I'm pretty sure you enjoy teaching. Competition will still exist... although instead of being competitive in the marketplace, goods/service/products etc... will go head to head using minimal resources and the winner (coz it's the best) will go into production. And just to make sure the competition stays fresh, ever piece of research, every single finding, every single breakthrough will be periodically shared amongst the competitors. Why the fuck would anyone want 10 similar items to choose from when 1 will do the job of all of them? These are just ideas. Not set in stone. And not truly mine, as I stand on the shoulders of giants and get to see a little further than they do, then someone gets to stand on my shoulders etc... preferably not shitting on me at any point in time whilst they're there. Eminently doable. All it takes is a quick conversation and a decision. Then leave the rest to those who will design each of the components for presentation to the people for a vote. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Nothing wrong with being cynical as it helps to stop people from swallowing any old shit.

[SPman]

They can't even get the science right so what chance is there that they can get the political and financial aspects right?

They claim that the CO2 concentration has topped 400 ppm for the first time ever, so they obviously read the initial press release but ignored the follow up. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...,7196126.story

399.89 - close but no cigar. The overall reading is still around 398.35 - not expected to get to 400 until a bit later.....

[oldrider]

But hey .. I'm amused by the cynical old cunt stance I've adopted/become ... so that's unlikely to change

True, it is so hard to avoid probably because we know something is wrong and we feel we can see the right answer but there is just so much shit to sort through!

Same sort of behaviour as a drunk defending their bottle, they need it least but will lay down their life to protect their right to have it!

Maybe cynicism grows proportionately with age and experience.