Debate Summary - SPS vs. Wind/Solar/Hydrogen

>Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 10:19:12 -0500
>
> > [many other interesting points snipped]
> > Your comment to reduce consumption in order to lower the problems
>associated
> > with power production is certainly anti-human. When one thinks this
>through,
> > it involves radical and massive changes in lifestyle for the entire
> > population, and absolutely a corresponding change in standard of living.
>Of
> > course, this change would be in the lower direction.
>
>First, I think there are many people who now consume less than they did
>before and are happier for it; often lower consumption means more time
>for hobbies and family and spiritual development (in part because of
>less need to work, and in also part from less consumerist distraction
>and clutter in their lives). See this book for details: _Voluntary
>Simplicity (rev) : Toward A Way Of Life That
>Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich_ by Duane Elgin:
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0688121195?v=glance
>One reviewer writes:
>"Although dated, this revised edition of VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY reads as
>fresh as a morning flower, and its subject matter is even more timely
>and relevant today. Here Author Duane Elgin provides a wonderful
>exploration of the practical and philosophical meaning of simplicity, as
>well as a very comprehensive overview of our ecological predicament. He
>does not suggest we live like Thoreau or throw out notions of progress.
>In place of thoughtless grow or "no growth" Elgin prefers a path of "new
>growth," where inner and outer, spiritual and material, technological
>and ecological demands are harmonized and balanced. From beginning to
>end, I could not put this book down. After reading it, I feel like a
>changed person. To quote Elgin, "In an era dominated by hideously
>complex problems of global dimension, the ability to see the world more
>clearly is essential to the survival and well-being of the human family.""

Very flowery and feel good, but I am missing the technical signifigance.

>
>In my teens I used to play Dungeons & Dragons and through whatever
>circumstances and luck (including by chance drawing a small castle twice
>from I think it was called "a deck of many things" which the DM agreed
>could be merged into one big one) [and some might call problematical
>Dungeon Mastering-ing, although I liked the DM] I ended up as a
>character with a lot of stuff -- huge castle, lots of magic items, two
>pet dragons, tons of gold and platinum etc. [I think that character
>succumbed to the "dark side" later also by the DM's manipulations, so
>it's a complex story and a complex DM.] I found for myself that I had
>more fun designing the castle than actually using it for anything. While
>some of this is the limits of any role playing game (you're not actually
>there) what I took a way from this is that great wealth can't buy
>happiness. And psychological studies of income show this too -- wealth
>does correlate some with happiness, but only up to meeting basic needs
>for food, shelter, health care, sociability, etc. Beyond a certain
>point, wealth is fairly useless on a personal level -- worse,
>outstanding wealth through financial obesity makes you a target.
>I'm not disregarding here the value of wealth in philanthropic projects,
>and related studies show the people who gained the most happiness after
>winning a large lottery were generally older women who started a
>philanthropic endeavor. This book _The Seven Laws of
>Money_ also helped me see this:
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570622779?v=glance

I, too, dabbled with D&D in Junior High, but again, as evidenced by the deus
ex machina (SP?)on the part of your DM (and other aspects as an RPG), wholly
unsuitable as an analogy for anything in reality. Further on in your posting
you will use the unquantifiable nature of 'happiness' as an argument to
defend your position, though you use this study that must have quantified in
some way as a defense as well. These approaches are contradictory. You
cannot use something as evidence when it supports your cause and than
discard and bash it when it does not.

People who win the lottery are, by and large, not rich. They are usually not
rich because their lifestyle precludes it. This is not a good or bad thing,
merely a fact. So, when given tons of moo-la, and the same lifestyle, it is
no wonder they are not happy - they just magnified whatever financil issues
they had many fold. For a much better view on money, and what makes rich
people rich (and their general attitudes), I strongly recommend reading 'The
Millionaire Next Door', I bet you will be very suprised.

>
>I think you are essentially asserting here that a reduction in US
>consumerist-type consumption (and energy use, pollution, etc.) will
>result in a lower standard of living (meaning more unhappy people?). I
>think this is the crux of our disagreement here -- to couple "standard
>of living" (as if there was only one and itself was a linear standard
>not a multidimensional one) then linearly with consumption of energy and
>goods. It is also an assumption built into most classical energy demand
>projects (which Amory Lovins takes to task in _Soft Energy Paths_),
>assuming more energy use by everyone by many times in a mindless pursuit
>of happiness through profligate energy waste. I just think such an
>assertion, while it sounds good on the surface, and may apply in some
>situations, is in general incorrect.
>
>To disprove it, just consider the US one hundred years ago -- when
>energy use in the form of high grade power like electricity was much
>reduced. Even factoring in civil rights issues and women not having the
>vote and other social problems and worse sanitation and greater infant
>mortality, were people that much unhappier in general than say "Ally
>McBeal"? How happy can a person be? And where does that happiness come
>from -- owning things or having meaningful relationships? Can you really
>put a number on this and say, yes now people are 100X happier because
>they use more energy? Consider the 70% or so of humanity that lives in
>extreme poverty relative (100X less stuff?) of energy use and resources
>to the US -- are they 100X more unhappy? I think not, because the
>capacity of people to be happy is more psychological than physical
>(beyond obvious physical discomforts). There is a law of diminishing
>returns on happiness from consumption.
>

Here you go again use statistics, the ultimate quantification, ???. Since I
do not have the time to complete deconstruct this line of thought, let me
suggest a simple experiment: Give an amenity to someone or group of
someones, allow them to become fully appreciative of the benefits and ease
this amenity supplies, and then take it away.

Certainly there are a few people who can reduce consumption voluntarily and
do OK, some may find God - who knows? The fact is, the VAST majority of
people do not operate this way, and nor will they. So, as I stated,
reduction of consumption is not a realistic option, and you cannot make it
so. WARS are fought over this aspect of humanity - do you think that flowery
and essentiallly vapid arguments will change it?

>When I talk to many people who come to the US for whatever reason
>(graduate school) they bemoan the tasteless processed food and lack of
>community -- showing that even in the US with all its wealth many things
>are lacking for many people (things they many not even be aware they
>lack but translate in increasing rates of depression -- soon to be the
>US's #1 disease and killer). Technology is in many ways failing us, see
>for example an article like one TangoMan linked to earlier:
> "New Economy Depression Syndrome "
> http://johnporcaro.typepad.com/blog/2003/08/new_economy_dep_1.html
> "He told of a report where 1/3 of all managers feel "overwhelmed," and
>nearly half of all "information workers" could be considered technically
>"depressed.""

I would say that the number one thing that results in depression for
imigrants is the drastic change in culture, and the removal of close family.
I myself have felt this way in coutries as diverse as Germany and Suadi
Arabia. Also, despite what the PC elite here in the US think, most other
cultures are far less tolerant of xenotypes, and this would further hamper
their efforts on acclimating in the US. Subjective things like 'the
tasteless food' are ridiculous arguments - I can assure you 100% that the
most diverse array of cusines is right here in the US. Having spent a good
protion of my adult life overseas, I learned this first hand.

>
>Or even consider this fascinating article:
> http://www.cardi.cornell.edu/research_briefs/CDR4-3.cfm
>"Since 1980 the number of reported cases of child abuse and neglect in
>the U.S. has almost tripled, going from 1.1 million to nearly three
>million in 1992. (US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect,1993).
>The teen unmarried birth rate jumped by 62% during the same period
>(Children's Defense Fund, 1995). The number of youth involved in gangs
>doubled between 1980 and 1990. The suicide rate among adolescents
>roughly tripled between the 1960's and 1980's, while the murder rate for
>teenage boys aged 15-19 more than doubled between 1985 and 1991
>(National Commission on Children, 1991). These changes constitute
>nothing less than an alarm; they indicate that an increasing number of
>families are somehow failing at their main task, raising their
>children." So, rising energy consumption and happiness by this basic
>standard are even negatively correllated in the USA! Some religious
>organizations on the right bemoan loss of personal morality for these
>problems, but could the problem be due more to our technical
>infrastructure (including all of our built environment, as driven by
>political Power needs for monopolization)?

Or perhaps more focus on these issues, and therefore better reporting, as
well as changing definitons of what constitutes abuse. For instance, I'll
bet that the rate of homosexuality in the early 1900's (to use your previous
time of happiness) was substantially lower. Why is that, hmmmmm... Probably
because it was far less safe for your career than it is today, and therefore
not only unreported, but hidden as well.

And once again, STATISTICS???

>
>And many of these psychological components of happiness also have to do
>with relative perceptions -- relative to other people and relative to
>what could be. Part of this is driven by the age-old desire to impress
>relatively to gain better mate choices, makign for a sort of arms race
>of consumption. Many components of happiness also have to do with
>community, justice, and other aspect of a society. Ignoring the down
>sides of hunter gatherer lifestyles (and obviously there were and are
>some),
> http://www.deoxy.org/endwork.htm
>in the main the adults and surviving children in those societies had
>opportunities to be happy and joyful people with little energy use
>beyond that in the larger ecosystem -- and had an entirely different
>attitude about possessions -- if they can't carry it with them, it is
>useless. (By the way, much of the supposed lower life expectancies for
>hunter gather tribes comes from higher infant mortality, thus someone
>making it past age five could typically expect to live to a ripe old
>age, since life expectancy is an average, this calling into question the
>value of much of modern medicine compared to exercise and a diverse diet.)
>

I am not sure where your knowledge of huntergatherer socities comes from,
but it seems misguided at best. Read up on Otzi, and note how many horrible
diseases he endured (also note that he did not eat according to The Zone,
the Atkins, or the Blood Type diets - all things that claim their
correctness to be based on what hunter gatherer lifestyles did). All the
greatness of humanity came to be as a result of civilazation. Sure, lots of
nasty stuff in there, too, but that was all there before: war and murder
over resources (head hunters in the amazon, amongst others), rape (pick any
tribe or society), prejudice, blah, blah, blah. Arguably, the good things
arrived because the environemtn of civilazation nurtured them. Surely you
don't believe Disney's constant potrayal of the 'Noble Savage'? Another
interesting question to ask yourself: What caused the Dark Ages?

>There is also another reason to disagree with this linear coupling of
>happiness and consumption, and that is innovation. Around where I live
>there are often drunk people snowmobiling on a frozen lake and I am left
>wondering why they want to be out in the cold and not infrequently
>getting crippled or dying driving around a generally boring terrain when
>they could be snowmobiling in their living rooms on a PlayStation 2 (or
>whatever other game) where it was warm and the beer is closer at hand
>and they didn't have to pay for mistakes with the rest of their life.
>Granted, I'll acknowledge the wind in one's hair and the thrill of
>danger and the warmth when one comes inside may add to the experience,
>and I can see how that might be tempting to do once, but in general, my
>point is that innovation (PlayStation 2) may provide alternatives to
>other resource use (PurchasingSnowMobile+Gas+Noise+AirPolution+using
>emergency medical services). [And note, their use of EMS costs the
>community real time and money and danger.]
>
So let me get this right: Nintendo and Sega as environment saving devices?
Call their marketing department right away!

This mindset is surely one that will engender the courageous attitude
required of lauching into orbit, extra vehicular activities and the like.
Seems kind of contrary to your space habitat dreams. And, given the
addictive nature of these things, will it increase or decrease the pool of
educated, hard working, and above all, focused individuals needed to affect
any goal involving space?

>Another aspect of innovation is simple things that bring great value.
>For example, most experts agree that the bulk of increase in life span
>of people in recent times has been due to improved sanitation (cleaner
>water) relative to a few hundred years ago. (Note this is relative
>improvement; hunter and gatherer societies didn't have the same
>sanitation problems agricultural communities did.) One interesting book
>_We all live downstream from people who want clean water_ argues part of
>the psychological issues with modern society historically is that as a
>very deep emotional level the flush toilet has convinced people that
>polluting clean water several times a day is normal -- whereas older
>society put a priority on safeguarding clean water. [Alternatives to
>flush toilets include the composting toilet such as the Clivus Multrum
>Composting Toilets http://www.clivus.com/ ] Overall a Clivus Multrum
>uses far less resources and takes less user involvement than a flush
>toilet + sewage system + water pumping + plumbing + drinking water
>purification etc.
>
The US has the number one and best supply of sanitary drinking water
anywhere in the world, including Europe, and we all flush. So what is your
point, other than invalidating that book as worthy reading material. Or
should I not flush and have the fresh smell of sewage remind me of how
important keeping the water clean is. How do justify the huge sales of
'purified' bottled water? On the flip side, because we are used to keeping
things clean (flushing) and fresh water, the very scent of tainted water,
no, the very thought, cause us trepidation and spur action to the contrary?
Or perhaps visit a Marxist country such as the old Soviet Union, or the
current China or North Korea - how clean is their water while living the
idylic communist life style? How about their happiness, for that matter?

>I don't want to go too OT on this, but the argument is that a lot of
>desires in US citizens have been crafted by a continual bombardment of
>media to make US citizens think they have strong needs they don't really
>have (like in most people's cases for SUVs).

Actually, its Ad agencies that pay the medias bills and fund their
exorbitant lifestyles that do the bombarding. But I thought this point had
already been rendered moot, i.e., the people want the SUVS, therefore, as
the manufaturers become aware of the demand, they increase the supply and
maximize said demand by aggressive marketing. Paul, I sure hope that you
drive either a Moped or a Prius... And don't ever fly.

So is it true demand or the
>result of extensive propaganda benefiting centralized political and
>economic Power keeping people enslaved in a consumerist fantasy?
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/millionairewannabes.htm
>Well if commercials didn't work, why are there so many of them when they
>cost so much to produce and show? Given that our so called "free market"
>economy
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/econfordebate.htm
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/wagesandresponsibility.htm
>is fundamentally biased by the Power structure to ignore external costs
>of pollution or various other problems (including safety risks and war
>risks and social costs) and to use taxes to subsidize monopolies like
>centralized control of energy production or arms production, this system
>has built in some fundamental injustices as well (noise and pollution
>from SUVs hurting other people than the SUV owner). Thus, absent social
>justice, such as might be reflected for example by regulation of these
>external costs etc., the pattern of consumption the typical US citizen
>follows is fundamentally anti-social and thus in that sense immoral
>(although many US citizens are not aware of this at a visceral level),
>and is partially driven by darker forces advertising such a lifestyle as
>desirable directly and indirectly when it may be directly harmful to
>that person or their neighbors or other people in other countries.
>

I present to you the Yugo - great example of supply, demand, and marketing.
No demand, no effort to supply, no effort to suppy, no marketing (and
therefore no commercials). Try starting and running a business, even a
philanthropic one, and see how you fare. Marketing must appeal to the
populations needs or percieved needs, and usually in a short (quarterly)
time frame. If it doesn't work (cause the people don't get the message or
don't want the product), then the manufaturer must pull the product or go
bust. Very simple. No one does or even can orchestrate these things, other
than in a bad novel or movie. And if they could, they would soon loose that
ability in the competition that would follow.

>Aspects of everyone's consumption in our society are immoral regardless
>of the purchaser's desire because of the nature of the technological
>prison (vs. technological garden) of wasteful and harmful processes we
>have built piecemeal around ourselves in this world, so anyone living in
>this society, myself included, is part of this fundamental external-cost
>immorality. A comparison could be made 150 years ago with those in the
>US who did not own slaves also shared some of the guilt of slavery by
>not opposing it or by using the results of slave produced goods. I'm not
>necessarily arguing pollution and related activities is as bad morally
>as slavery, just that there are some parallels, made uncomfortable close
>when looking as production methods in other countries, like for Chocolate.
> "Mali's children in chocolate slavery"
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1272000/1272522.stm
>One of my interests in space habitats has always been the thought of
>them as a chance to design living accomodations which did not have as
>many of these failings because they were designed more as systems
>considering all factors.
> http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/need.htm
>

Bravo to your utopian outlook on life in space. I surely hope you dream is
realized, though I suspect that we will have to wait longer than either of
us would like. However, you are very guilty here of judging those in the
past in the terms of today. Consider the exposure that anyone would have had
or had access to, in the way of new ideas, actual conditions for slaves,
where their products were coming from and so on. Even exposure to other
peoples was far more limited, and there the most powerful persuasion of all
in terms of showing the benefits of tolerance and the immorality of the
reverse. Further, conditioners were far more harsh relative to today, and
far less time available to ponder the big questions. In fact, I'll bet that
people were even more subject to the media's demagogery due to that fact
alone. Who had the time, much less the access, to figure all these things
out. You see, having washing machines, dryers, cars, computers,
supermarkets, police forces, protection from external detriments to
maintaining these labor saving devices all free up the time to think these
things. Maybe technology ain't so bad.

>I quite agree with someone like Jerry Pournelle in (I think) "A Step
>Further Out" that there is nothing implicitely wrong in itself with
>massive energy use for no reason other than we want to (the sun appears
>to do it :-), or massive consumption because we want to, such as by
>driving a gas guzzling Cadillac, etc (beyond perhaps existential issues
>of self-growth :-). The problem comes when people are essentially
>consuming in a way they can not afford (when looking at unpaid external
>costs). My argument here about consumption is then three fold:
>1. That consumption (of energy, materials, etc.) is at best only
>indirectly related to happiness and joy (and certainly so beyond certain
>minimums which actually many people in this world still don't have).
>2. That energy and materials can likely be used cleverly to meet those
>minimums without significant external costs like destroying the
>ecosphere, creating a high risk of war, and so on (although admittedly,
>this process may still require more R&D to be done better, although it
>is possible now) but that they are often not being used very cleverly
>now so the current consumptive patterns are harmful to others.
>3. That given #1 and #2, the US style of consumption, given that such
>external costs of pollution and war etc. are unfairly paid by other than
>the consumer or producer or distributor etc., is fundamentally immoral.
>Further, there are people and systems which think they benefit directly
>from the status quo, and actively resist change or innovation along the
>lines of #2 (example, Reagan gutting renewable energy research on taking
>office, although Democratic policies also are problematical).
>

Do you use a credit card? Did you finance your car? Hmmmm.... Unfortunately
people are living above their means every day. Lots of large companies due
it every day to get over humps or just to start up. That's called leveraged
debt. Although many people get themselves in trouble (indivduals mostly,
cause companies largely die when they do it). You know, it is consumer
spending that drives a large part of our economy, and the strength of our
economy allows us to ponder and possibly take action on many issues of
global importance, and, most importantly, it helps us convince others too.
So, I have a very hard time giving credibilty to the arguments of persons
believing in types of governments and ways of managing economies that are
demonstrated failures.

I know a few people who own business in far away lands such as Thailand, and
pay their employees a pittance relative to the US minimum wage, yet these
same employees are able to maintain standards of living comparable to or
better than those in the US, hmmmmm... Cost of living is much, much lower,
and that wage is huge over there. Unfortunately, we here in the US have
buily our cost of living into something much higher - now how did that
happen. Oh, and growing up in the 70's and 80's, I was very grateful putting
those resouces to work limiting the threat of nuclear annihilation, but all
the touchy feely people don't seem to care about that anymore (pushing for a
withdrawal from Iraq and Iran). Times have changed however, and judging
today's circumstance buy today's standards, I would agree that more needs to
be done now.

>So given these issues, SSPS for me overall doesn't solve these problems
>both because it relies on a difficult to maintain grid and it involves a
>continued centralization of political and economic Power (as well as
>power) and still avoids adressing the fundamental socio-political issues
>relating to patterns of production and consumption. Thus SSPS is sort-of
>the answer to the wrong question.

Weren't you reading TangoMan's posts? It seemed like he did a pretty good
and thorough job of deconstructing this side of the argument. Shoot, he
convinced me.

>
>For an analogy, I think people here would think it immoral to pay for an
>SUV with cash earned by robbing homes of guns (and reselling them on the
>street) and then to use a credit card to pay for the gas used by the SUV
>with no intention of ever repaying that debt. This SUV purchase and use
>is immoral because it involves theft and intentionally defaulted debt.
>The question is, how close to that immoral state is someone who pays for
>an SUV from earning money in a typical US job (living on land and using
>resources stolen at gunpoint and with bioweapons from natives around the
>world) and using gas and power where the waste is left for future
>generations to deal with. Perhaps on a face to face morality basis they
>are different -- but at a systems level are they really that different
>-- as the theft and debt are just a few more steps removed. When you
>look at large scale monopolized and centralized energy production as it
>has been done around the world this is its history -- and it is an awful
>legacy of environmental destruction and injustice. Adding SSPS to this
>equation still leaves most all the other issues -- 90%+ of the pollution
>(grid and factory), and the dominant social Power hurting weaker groups
>such as by the SSPS authority putting rectennas wherever it wants,
>pricing power however it wants and cuting off whoever it doesn't like,
>investment dollars being diverted from local alternatives, advertising
>to promote profligate energy use, civil liberties being curtailed due to
>security vulnerabilities, etc.
>
>This could be a long and raging debate which I don't want to drag down
>this list with, but suffice to say I feel it is quite likely that in the
>same way slavery is now viewed as immoral, someday getting other people
>to pay for your external costs will be viewed as immoral. I think we can
>(and have had) a reasonable debate about whether the external costs of
>SPSs or local PV are higher in the short and long terms. (Note: I don't
>say "consumption" by itself is immoral. Consume all you want -- if you
>can completely afford it without hurting anybody, although I still
>maintain there are limits to the happiness consumption will bring, as
>influenced from my D&D days mentioned above.) For my own self, I have
>chosen to engage in this society to a limited extent and utilize its in
>this sense morally problematical technology (as TangoMan points out the
>production of IC chips produces a lot of pollution) to try to help it
>transcend towards more innovation which can support human life in joy
>while being a society that is not racking up debts for future
>generations or based fairly directly on theft and murder. So, there is a
>bootstrapping process here I guess I believe in hopefully long term --
>perhaps leading up to worlds like in _The Skills of Xanadu_ or _Voyage
>from Yesteryear_. It is a difficult endeavor, and I once thought SPS
>might be more of that future than I do now (compared to better earthly
>PV and insulation etc.). Others might find other paths, like simply
>eating more rice and beans and less grain fed meat. :-)
> http://world.std.com/~habib/thegarden/simplicity/
>
>While I still disagree with TangoMan about issues of external costs of
>SSPS (such as the grid vs. PV production pollution long term), at least
>some comments he and others here make represent an attempt to an extent
>to take moral responsibility for one aspect of the US consumer lifestyle
>by generating cleaner power and that is a good thing. (This doesn't go
>all the way to look at the whole US production and consumption system,
>but it's a start. :-)
>
>Perhaps this would be better posted under TangoMan's comments on James
>P. Hogan and _Voyage from Yesteryear_, but here is something I wrote to
>him on it recently:
>: One thing about that novel I find most surprising on rereading in some
>: ways is that when I first read it long ago I thought it was absurd
>: that the Mayflower II elite (and common folk) would so long resist
>: just joining the Chironians in prosperity. About two decades of living
>: later (and struggling with trying to get universities, companies, etc.
>: to see a different way) I see how realistic and insightful that
>: dialogue is (e.g. watching Iraq II / WW-IV unfold despite the fact
>: that the war's cost spent on home insulation and more efficient cars
>: in the US would probably eliminate the need to import oil into the
>: US).
>
>His reply on that issue was essentially: "The answer is fairly
>straightforward once you realize that the "America" that is gaining the
>power and the benefits is not the same "American" that's being made to
>pay the cost."
>
>(I'd definitely recommend rereading that novel for anyone to think about
>how it applies to today's political situation...)
>
>I think that is the crux of the moral argument for less consumption
>until we have a less polluting and war inducing technosphere in place
>(using SPS, PV, or whatever): the people gaining the benefit are often
>not the same ones paying the costs (and we are talking more than money
>here), and so for any consumption that is mostly optional, like for most
>people an SUV, consuming that way because you feel like it for amusement
>is in that sense immoral, absent some other reason for the consumption.
>I think one can find technical ways to disagree with this -- for example
>arguing future nanotech will clean up the whole mess and so the debt is
>minor (I half believe this :-), or alternatively by arguing for a
>bootstrapping process by consumption which will become more benign as
>people become more aware of these issues and take steps to correct them
>(which is happening, if slowly!) or even arguing simply that "might (and
>consumption) makes right" (urk, but true to an extent in some
>perspectives!) -- but these counter arguments probably still don't
>address all the current social dimensions (dulling factory labor,
>indigenous people killed or displaced, current health problems from
>pollution, governmental corruption from petrodollars, etc.) which IMHO
>may eventually need to be addressed more head on.
>
>--Paul Fernhout
>
Well, I agree that we could go on quite awhile on this topic, and probably
shouldn't. But let me make a suggestion: find an area that most fits in with
your ideology, and move there for awhile. I'd be interested to see if you
maintained your current view if you truly (lived as (not like) the natives).
To qute Winston Churchill (a famed crusader against Facism, which is very,
very like Marxism), "of all the forms of government, democracy is the least
worst". I would add to that that the US and other Western tyle democracies,
while having their share of faults and blunders, have BY FAR, done the most
most good at helping the other peoples of the world in need, have been BY
FAR the most generous, and BY FAR set the best example for other peoples
less fortunate. I have seen the some of true horrors in the world in person,
and they are not of or by the US. If the West has one fault, it is that that
it hasn't expanded enough.

Paul, I strongly recommend taking courses of studies both in economics and
in critical thinking, and also starting and running your own business. These
things would be of great value to you in pursuing ideas which I agree are
most worthy.

Val

Val

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