views, perceptions of personal responsibilities.

[Socratoad]

I went to sleep last night pondering this. Well actually its something I ponder constantly, almost to the point of distraction:

The horrendously distasteful phenomena which I will loosely file under "marketing"

It appears to me that no matter what it is, our "wonderful" ideology" treats everything as just one more commodity to be marketed, and I for one have become truly sickened by the lie that the so-called invisible hand of the marketplace will sort it all out.

Example: I love sea-food to the point that I could literally choose to live on it, and yet I restrict myself quite severely in this indulgence because like all of you here I can read and so I'm well aware that salt water species are disappearing at an alarming rate. And yet the marketing goes on as if all is well.

There are so many similar such examples of mindless marketing, and mindless consumption I could mention , however that is enough to kick off a thread.

Any thoughts?

[dave_a]

Well it is my perception that the "invisible hand" works quite well *most* of the time. When it doesn't work well we regulate.

Looking at the issue of seafood, there has been a move to farm raise this food where practical and this relieves the stress on the wild populations and creates a 'renewable resource'.

Of course it isn't possible to farm raise deep sea critters as creating 'pools' of sufficient depth aren't economically feasible.

So I guess my view is that time should be allowed for the market to solve problems and if no solution is found then it is time to look at regulations.

I prefer market based solutions to government/regulation based solutions simply because government is an easy entity to corrupt due to concentration of power and often those regulations are used to protect bad behavior instead of stop it.

[wade-w]

The problem with "free market" arguments, dantonac, is that the idealized free market that Adam Smith and his successors talk about does not exist in reality. Between government subsidies and private monopolies, we've never really seen a true free market, so the "invisible hand" is not just invisible, it isn't even there.

[Socratoad]

Ah dantonac, once again I seem to have not made myself very clear. I do not wish this thread to be about the marketplace per se, or capitalism versus socialism. Dog knows I'm sick to death of hearing that never-ending debate.

What I really mean is what is "our" responsibilities as individuals.

Sorry for my lack of clarity.

PS: Like Wade says the invisible hand does not exist, however the manipulative one certainly does, and so knowing that what is our individual responsibility. I know I just repeated myself, but its just in the aid of clarity

[dave_a]

Ah dantonac, once again I seem to have not made myself very clear. I do not wish this thread to be about the marketplace per se, or capitalism versus socialism. Dog knows I'm sick to death of hearing that never-ending debate.

What I really mean is what is "our" responsibilities as individuals.



Ah, I see. As individuals I think our responsibility is to behave according to our informed conscience. When we see others behaving in ways against our conscience I think we *may* have an obligation to ensure their conscience is informed.

Example, I like to eat Tilapia, a farm raised fish. This fish has replaced some of the wild caught fish that are threatened due to overharvesting and lack of protections. That is me acting according to my informed conscience.

If I know someone who eats an endangered/threatened species I might casually remark that I used to eat them as well, until I learned they were being overfished to the point of being threatened and I found a suitable replacement in a farm raised fish variety.

HOPEFULLY, that information will result in their at least trying the fish I mentioned as an alternative, but ultimately they are going to act according to their conscience.

I am continuing your example of fish, but I think the same holds true for anything.

[Godless Dave]

Well it is my perception that the "invisible hand" works quite well *most* of the time. When it doesn't work well we regulate.It depends what you mean by "work". As a means of exchanging goods and services, yes it works.

As a means of preserving natural resources, it doesn't; and I don't think Smith thought it would.

As a means of delivering modern health care to all citizens of a nation-state (in those countries where the people have agreed on that as a goal), it does not work. And again I don't think Smith would have predicted that it would: he was describing how economies behave, not how societies should behave.

But whether it "works" or not is not the whole picture. When I took economics (intro, which I dropped after skipping half the lectures) it seemed to me that what many people of the socialist stripe fail to realize is that laws of supply and demand always function, and ignoring them will lead to unintended consequences. What people on both extremes seem not to miss is that Smith's laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. Communists thought they could just write their own rules and economic forces would follow them. We know how that turned out. Extreme capitalists seem to think that if we just let market forces take their course, everything will turn out fine for everybody. History shows that to be false as well.

Looking at the issue of seafood, there has been a move to farm raise this food where practical and this relieves the stress on the wild populations and creates a 'renewable resource'.Until the genetically-engineered farm-raised organisms escape and interbreed with wild populations. Like much modern farming, they've managed to develop something that tastes bad and is bad for the environment.

I prefer market based solutions to government/regulation based solutions simply because government is an easy entity to corrupt due to concentration of power and often those regulations are used to protect bad behavior instead of stop it.I agree with what you say about the government, but in my opinion the market is just as easy to corrupt.

[dave_a]

Well it is my perception that the "invisible hand" works quite well *most* of the time. When it doesn't work well we regulate.It depends what you mean by "work". As a means of exchanging goods and services, yes it works.

As a means of preserving natural resources, it doesn't; and I don't think Smith thought it would.


I read your post, but am not going to respond to it here as my first response to Toad (which you are responding to) was a misinterpretation of the OP's intent.

I would like to keep Toad's thread on his topic.

[beyelzu]

I am pretty much a mindless consumer. I buy what I like and dont overthink the consequences of the purchase.


So, I guess I am part of the problem.

[viscousmemories]

Example: I love sea-food to the point that I could literally choose to live on it, and yet I restrict myself quite severely in this indulgence because like all of you here I can read and so I'm well aware that salt water species are disappearing at an alarming rate. And yet the marketing goes on as if all is well.
Honestly I've never even heard of or thought about diminishing saltwater species, and at this point I'm tempted to say I don't even want to know about it. I am one small, relatively insignificant biological organism in a vast and complex universe. I can only accept so much responsibility for the nature of things. Eventually the sun is going to superheat and wipe out all life on this planet, humans included. Why should it make a difference to me if shrimp are the first to go?

I'm not just being cynical either, because I do recycle, minimize my consumption of resources, etc. as it makes me feel like I am being a conscientious member of the human race. But I do realize that all of this is largely cosmetic. Part of a game that I probably won't live to see the end of, but will eventually end.

[livius drusus]

It seems to me, Toad - and please correct me if I'm wrong - that your basic question is "is everything for sale?". Are there things that are more valuable to us as indivduals and us as a society when quantified in other than monetary terms, iow.

Am I vaguely on track here?

[Socratoad]

Thanks dantonac, Your example of choosing to eat tilapia is exactly the type of personal awareness I mean. These are the ways I have chosen to live my life ......hiding from nothing, and pointing my fingers at few. I also like the way you choose to quietly mention such things to friends .... to do the opposite would not likely have the desired effect.

I'm sorry vm and others that you just try to rationalize your choices by saying well what the hell its all going to end anyway, so why worry. My answer to such nihilistic thought is that if we all come to feel so bloody small in the greater scheme of things, then indeed the end will come.

The trouble with nihilism is that one cannot possibly be happy or even have a sense of well-being or purpose by following that path.

A quite unexpected and beneficial by product of caring for all that goes on around you is the ability to look in a mirror and actually like what you see.

[viscousmemories]

I wish I could prevent the end of the world by thinking happy thoughts and being kind to strangers, but what little knowledge I have of science indicates that I cannot.

I feel quite good about the person I see in the mirror, despite the fact that I don't lament the existence of human beings in general or my specific impact on the world. I do what I can with the resources I have, and I accept that there is much I can't do. To do otherwise, in my opinion, is to choose to be miserable.

[Socratoad]

It seems to me, Toad - and please correct me if I'm wrong - that your basic question is "is everything for sale?". Are there things that are more valuable to us as individuals and us as a society when quantified in other than monetary terms, iow.

Am I vaguely on track here?

Yes Liv, you are on the right trail, although I think we can all agree that indeed everything is for sale. The more important question is, according to Toad, are you and I empathetic enough not to buy some or many things for the sake of society as a whole and future generations in particular. Or are we so disenfranchised by our own sense of helplessness and nihilism that we only wish to amuse ourselves to death?

What I'm suggesting in this thread is that we can only come to think of ourselves as significant beings by actually making significant choices.
I think I'm getting pretty close to the key to gaining overall mental health here,because when one learns to focus on the well-being of others, including the planet one does not tend to feel insignificant but rather a part of the whole.

[Godless Dave]

Honestly I've never even heard of or thought about diminishing saltwater species
That's OK, people have only been talking about it since the late 1970s.

[Socratoad]

I wish I could prevent the end of the world by thinking happy thoughts and being kind to strangers, but what little knowledge I have of science indicates that I cannot.

I feel quite good about the person I see in the mirror, despite the fact that I don't lament the existence of human beings in general or my specific impact on the world. I do what I can with the resources I have, and I accept that there is much I can't do. To do otherwise, in my opinion, is to choose to be miserable.

I'm sorry vm if I seem to have indicted that thinking happy thoughts would actually save anything. And I'm not trying to preach to you or to anyone, but actually just trying to put my own thoughts into words because these things I have mentioned are very important to my sense of identity and also help to explain much of what I find to be alienating with societal values in general.

[Godless Dave]

Thanks dantonac, Your example of choosing to eat tilapia is exactly the type of personal awareness I mean.
However (and I'm not singling out Dantonac here), the objections raised by many conservationists to fish farming points out that even when we recognize a problem, the solution is not always obvious. Often there are no easy answers because the problems and solutions are all interconnected. Twenty years ago people across the US saw that there were real problems with nuclear fission power, and they were right, but the consequence of their activism has been continued reliance on pollution-heavy energy sources like coal and a huge scaleback in nuclear research that could have led to safer, less polluting nuclear power. Knee-jerk reactions and concentration on single issues often leads to unintended consquences and new problems.

[Socratoad]

Honestly I've never even heard of or thought about diminishing saltwater species
That's OK, people have only been talking about it since the late 1970s.

This thread is about more than just salt-water species, but they are certainly a good example. At one time a person could almost walk upon the waters from the back of one cod to another off the Grand Banks, and now the whole codfish industry has crashed and may never return, and yet good old captain Highliner keeps on pushing the product as if there was no tomorrow. This thread is not about an individual corporation but rather our own awareness and what we have chosen to do about such matters.

Would any of you gladly sit down to a meal consisting of the last pair of codfish, saying what the hell should I care.....the fish tastes just great?

I hope the answer is no, because otherwise I will have lost just a little bit more respect for my species,

[Socratoad]

Thanks dantonac, Your example of choosing to eat tilapia is exactly the type of personal awareness I mean.
However (and I'm not singling out Dantonac here), the objections raised by many conservationists to fish farming points out that even when we recognize a problem, the solution is not always obvious. Often there are no easy answers because the problems and solutions are all interconnected. Twenty years ago people across the US saw that there were real problems with nuclear fission power, and they were right, but the consequence of their activism has been continued reliance on pollution-heavy energy sources like coal and a huge scaleback in nuclear research that could have led to safer, less polluting nuclear power. Knee-jerk reactions and concentration on single issues often leads to unintended consquences and new problems.

I for one am not speaking about knee-jerk reactions nor concentrating on single issues. Methinks that such reading of the intentions this thread is a distraction, or I am unable to make my points clearly :(

[viscousmemories]

I'm sorry vm if I seem to have indicted that thinking happy thoughts would actually save anything. And I'm not trying to preach to you or to anyone, but actually just trying to put my own thoughts into words because these things I have mentioned are very important to my sense of identity and also help to explain much of what I find to be alienating with societal values in general.
That's cool, Toad. The thing is while my responses are often based on my nihilistic worldview and sometimes inappropriately cynical, I believe that in this case my analogy was apt. Your question about how we should act presupposes that driving any species to extinction is necessarily a bad thing. I don't make the same assumption, so I don't think it's immoral to do so. And I like seafood, so I don't really want to feel guilty about eating it. I already feel guilty about 1000 other things, I don't need any more.

I am more than willing to listen to arguments for why driving species to extinction is necessarily a bad thing, and if they are compelling I will change my mind and my body will follow. But until then I will continue believing that it is unlikely that the exact state of life as it exists on the planet Earth in 2004 AD is the perfect and ideal state and should be preserved at all costs. I just don't understand why it should be.

[viscousmemories]

Honestly I've never even heard of or thought about diminishing saltwater species
That's OK, people have only been talking about it since the late 1970s.
Huh. I guess someone needs to hire better marketing people. I still hum the jingle for the Detroit Zoo from the ads I saw in the 70's. I can't imagine why I've never heard about this important crisis.

[Godless Dave]

I for one am not speaking about knee-jerk reactions nor concentrating on single issues. Methinks that such reading of the intentions this thread is a distraction, or I am unable to make my points clearly :(
I wasn't disagreeing with you. Rather, I was trying to talk about how hard it is to be personal responsible even when we want to be.

[Dingfod]

http://www.esc2000.com/Newsletters/Artwork%20Newsletter/ostrich2.jpg

[Socratoad]

I for one am not speaking about knee-jerk reactions nor concentrating on single issues. Methinks that such reading of the intentions this thread is a distraction, or I am unable to make my points clearly :(
I wasn't disagreeing with you. Rather, I was trying to talk about how hard it is to be personal responsible even when we want to be.

Yeah sorry Dave, I'm just not really with it right now, so I shall just lurk for a couple of days until I feel a little better :wave:

[Godless Dave]

I am more than willing to listen to arguments for why driving species to extinction is necessarily a bad thing, and if they are compelling I will change my mind and my body will follow. But until then I will continue believing that it is unlikely that the exact state of life as it exists on the planet Earth in 2004 AD is the perfect and ideal state and should be preserved at all costs. I just don't understand why it should be.OK, here's the argument I've heard the most and that I agree with the most:

Species are going extinct far more rapidly than usual, mostly because of human influence on the environment. In the past, mass extinctions have led to global ecological catastrophe. At best, we will run out of the natural resources we enjoy using and find ourselves short of food, building materials, textiles, and medicines. At worst, the catastrophe could bring about climate change that would kill large amounts of humans.

Here is a simpler, but equally valid, argument:

Say you like eating salmon. If salmon go extinct, you won't get to eat them anymore.

Sort of like if I harvest all my pot plants and don't take any cuttings to grow more, I will have a lot of pot to smoke now but no way of producing more in the future.

A common misconception about conservationism and environmentalism is that they are completely altruistic. But for a species that is part of the global ecosystem, conservation is in our long term self-interest.

[Dingfod]

Farm raised salmon taste as good as wild salmon. Are there any cod farms?


Plus, I think I figured out why I don't smoke pot anymore.

[Godless Dave]

Farm raised salmon taste as good as wild salmon.
Allow me to vehemently disagree with that statement in the strongest possible terms.

And yes, I also buy free-range meat when I can afford it. More humane to the animals, tastes lots better, easier on the environment, and the farmers get paid more because ADM/Cargill/Monsanto haven't stuck their vulturous beaks in yet.

[Dingfod]

Sorry, but I cannot tell the difference. Perhaps being landlocked in the middle of salmonless plains, I never have had real fresh salmon.

[viscousmemories]

Avoiding the point-by-point response as part of a new life strategy...

Those are a couple of good arguments, Dave. I would be interested in seeing the first one fleshed out in a thread of its own because it's really not something I've ever given much thought to. I'll start one.

Toad, I understand your point about personal responsibility and I appreciate the fact that you are a deliberate consumer who is genuinely concerned about the impact you have on the world. I am too. The thing is, I have very limited physical, emotional and mental resources. It would be impossible for me to be aware of and concerned about every single issue, so I have to pick my battles.

You are concerned about driving saltwater fish to extinction and you therefore moderate your intake of saltwater fish. I appreciate and respect that, really. But there just isn't enough time in a day for me to thoroughly examine and explore every issue that people raise, and modify my lifestyle accordingly. I do what I can.

Right now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed just getting out of bed and feeding myself. I am wracked with depression, guilt and frustration over being unemployed and broke. I'm sorry but under the circumstances I am not overly concerned about saltwater fish.

I understand your faith in humanity is shaken a bit right now and I'm sorry. I assure you, though, that I am not the cold and unfeeling monster you may believe me to be. I have no desire to kill any animals, but I make somewhat arbitrary distinctions as we all do. I don't hunt or fish, for example, but I kill insects and spiders with near impunity and I eat meat and fish that other people kill. I have given it all a great deal of thought and I'm always conscious of my choices. But it's just not black and white to me.

[Socratoad]

Avoiding the point-by-point response as part of a new life strategy...

Those are a couple of good arguments, Dave. I would be interested in seeing the first one fleshed out in a thread of its own because it's really not something I've ever given much thought to. I'll start one.

Toad, I understand your point about personal responsibility and I appreciate the fact that you are a deliberate consumer who is genuinely concerned about the impact you have on the world. I am too. The thing is, I have very limited physical, emotional and mental resources. It would be impossible for me to be aware of and concerned about every single issue, so I have to pick my battles.

You are concerned about driving saltwater fish to extinction and you therefore moderate your intake of saltwater fish. I appreciate and respect that, really. But there just isn't enough time in a day for me to thoroughly examine and explore every issue that people raise, and modify my lifestyle accordingly. I do what I can.

Right now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed just getting out of bed and feeding myself. I am wracked with depression, guilt and frustration over being unemployed and broke. I'm sorry but under the circumstances I am not overly concerned about saltwater fish.

I understand your faith in humanity is shaken a bit right now and I'm sorry. I assure you, though, that I am not the cold and unfeeling monster you may believe me to be. I have no desire to kill any animals, but I make somewhat arbitrary distinctions as we all do. I don't hunt or fish, for example, but I kill insects and spiders with near impunity and I eat meat and fish that other people kill. I have given it all a great deal of thought and I'm always conscious of my choices. But it's just not black and white to me.

Vm, I am well aware that it is pretty piss por etiquette to start a thread a then walk away. Actually something else is bothering me right now and I thought that by starting this rather heavy thought inducing thread I would be able to lift myself out of the funk I'm in at present. Alas this has proven not to be so, and so I'm withdrawing from posting for at least a couple of days, hopefully to overcome another set of circumstances.

I really hope the rest of you will continue to probe feelings. values and concepts embedded in this thread in the meantime.

I have taken the time to write this because I would now wish to give the impression that I'm taking my ball and bat and going home in a huff. Like Macarthur, Toad shall return. In the meantime he's sicker than a dog.

[viscousmemories]

It's not piss-poor etiquette when you have to take a break, Toad. I have been following the other threads and I'm sorry you're feeling down. Take care of yourself.