John Berry <berry.joh...@gmail.com> wrote: There is enough for everyone, but there is not YET enough for everyone to > do nothing and have plenty. >
Yes, but there will be soon. In a few generations there will be. We are in a transition. We need to gradually reinvent society and economics to accommodate unlimited wealth. > And some things are getting worse not better, GM crops are killing the > soil, and pollution is making some even otherwise remote locations unable > to produce food. There are water shortages developing and we are destroying > the environment to the extent there is projected to be nothing in the ocean > before too long . . . > These are technical problems with little or no connection to wealth and poverty, or economics. GM crops may be killing the soil as you say. The solution is to stop growing plants in soil. All crops should be grown indoors in food factories. This takes up much less space and uses far less resources and energy. The food is much safer, tastier, and it needs no pesticides. Meat should be grown *in vitro* so that no animals need to suffer. This takes far less energy, resources and space, and the meat will be healthier for you, the carnivore. Water shortages should be eliminated by conserving and recycling water, and by desalination. The city of Los Angeles has made great progress in this. It now uses less water than it did in 1970 even though the population is larger. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/opinion/sunday/los-angeles-city-of-water.html > Bees are being killed by insecticides, while food futures are being gamed > leaving people starving. > As I said, this is unnecessary. It is not an economic problem so much as ignorance and stupidity. It is caused by obsolete technology. I admit I see most things is a technical problem. "To the man who has only a hammer all problems look like a nail." Perhaps this is not so much my problem as other people's problem. I think most people do not understand much about technology so they tend to look at technical problems and assume these are economic or moral problems. People see crops eroding the land, polluting, and pesticides destroying wild bees, and they say "this is a moral problem." I agree it is a moral problem, but I look at the Netherlands and say: "Why can we do things the way they do? They are making tons of money. They are not polluting anything. If they keep building food factories and exporting food factory technology to Japan, Korea and other nations, they will eventually produce enough food to feed every person on earth at a much lower cost than we do today, and they will make tremendous profits doing that. So why don't we hop on that bandwagon?" By "eventually" I mean in 30 years. Why should we let them walk away with one of the largest and most profitable industries in the U.S. (agriculture)? > Making a basic income a right might reduce much of the meanness and the > screwing things over to get ahead mentality. > I hope it would, but in any case the problems you listed can be fixed by other means with today's capitalistic system. One interesting thing no one has mentioned is that all that is needed is > for the payment to indeed occur through a crypto currency! > I see no connection. Why not just use ordinary money? - Jed
