Can we survive Global Capitalism?

[coberst]

Can we survive Global Capitalism?

 

There are negative feedback control systems such as a furnace/thermostat or our own bodies. There are positive feedback control systems such as an ordinary fire or our capitalistic economic system.

 

In a fire the higher the temperature the faster the fuel is burned; the faster the fuel burns the higher goes the temperature. In a business enterprise it is common practice to put a percentage of profit into advertising. More advertising creates greater sales, which mean higher profit.

 

A negative feedback system seeks out equilibrium; a positive feedback system has no equilibrium and is ever accelerating.

 

If we have a positive feedback system, such as capitalism being now abetted by Globalism, we face the horrendous situation that the greater the progress the faster the spiral of destruction when considering that the world and humans are negative feedback systems.

 

If we choose to continue with our present global/capitalistic program we must find a way to dampen the positive feedback system.

 

Biologists, and probably other sciences, inform us that human conceit, i.e. human ego, distorts our ability to comprehend our self. Egocentricities motivate us into irrational behavior thereby imperiling our survival; the human animal is arrogant and dangerous. Mark Twain was told that “man is the noblest work of God” to which he replied “Now, who found that out?”

 

Bernard James, author of “The Death of Progress” argues that perhaps a new moral order might be the solution to acquiring the means to avoid self-extinction. He argues that creation is a function of life. It is inventive acts that govern the evolution and survival requirements of human and ecosystems.

 

I suggest that we must find a new formula for the encouragement of creativity directed at this monumental problem. This is a problem that demands quick action and it seems to me that we cannot wait several generations for this to be accomplished. Today’s adults must recognize the problem and must energetically seek a solution. I think that an invigorated self-actualization through self-learning by adults is required. I am not talking about more schooling. Schooling has left us learning-handicapped already. This effort must be self-learning. Adults must begin a concentrated effort toward developing an intellectual life far beyond that which now exists.

[Larv]

Biologists, and probably other sciences, inform us that human conceit, i.e. human ego, distorts our ability to comprehend our self.

Just a nit to pick here, coberst. Respectfully, I know of no biologist or any other scientist who ever “informed” us “that human conceit, i.e. human ego, distorts our ability to comprehend our self.” I could imagine a psychologist saying something like that, but psychology is a social science and often floats on the airy fluff of metaphysics.

 

Does science even know what “self” means? I seriously doubt it.

[coberst]

Just a nit to pick here, coberst. Respectfully, I know of no biologist or any other scientist who ever “informed” us “that human conceit, i.e. human ego, distorts our ability to comprehend our self.” I could imagine a psychologist saying something like that, but psychology is a social science and often floats on the airy fluff of metaphysics.

 

Does science even know what “self” means? I seriously doubt it.

 

Our (American) educational system teaches the student how to become a good producer and consumer. If the student stops learning after their school daze are over they shall never learn how to become a self-actualizing independent critical thinking citizen. I might add that the culture adds to this harmful mix by inculcating, through social osmosis, a strong anti-intellectual bias so that the citizen has a strong distaste for anything intellectual that cannot be defined within a set of algorithms.

[Larv]

Our (American) educational system teaches the student how to become a good producer and consumer. If the student stops learning after their school daze are over they shall never learn how to become a self-actualizing independent critical thinking citizen. I might add that the culture adds to this harmful mix by inculcating, through social osmosis, a strong anti-intellectual bias so that the citizen has a strong distaste for anything intellectual that cannot be defined within a set of algorithms.

coberst, could you translate that into something I can comprehend. I guess you're saying that science can be too scientific for the common citizen to appreciate. But I see no good reason to "dumb it down" for the sake of street-level digestion. That will do more harm than good.

 

We need to be awfully careful when we speak scientifically about such things as "human conceit," "human ego," and "comprehension of self." Those terms are nothing more than pop-sci jargon. In fact, the "ego," as part of the psychic apparatus defined by Freud, is the not the fountain of conceit at all; it's the powerful id and the weak superego that cause the conceit problem. And, then again, that's coming from social science, which is not even a soft science like biology, much less a hard science like physics.

[Super Polymath]

Ethics & economics cannot co-exist. One day we're going to be forced to rely on innovations that circumvent any reliance upon capitalism. 

Edited April 5, 2018 by Super Polymath