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Originally posted by Agathon
Because some sort of market economy is the easiest solution to the problem of large agglomerations of people. Altruism requires trust to prevent free riding, which wasn't a problem in the small communities which human beings have lived in for most of the species' history because you could easily identify those who weren't pulling their weight. It's easy to identify with a common good when you are related to most of the people in your economy.
Moreover, it's easy to reach decisions about what to do in a small community, but hard for a larger one.
Thanks for making it quick.(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.
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Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Thue!http://www.hardware-wiki.com - A wiki about computers, with focus on Linux support.
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Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
It's actually pretty good. I wonder, what safeguards are there for protecting articles from political biases? I looked that GW Bush one, and it was very balanced. I'd imagine if it was a free for all in editing, it would not be anywhere close to that.
Registered members can use the "watch" feature to be told when somebody has edited an article. I imagine that at least one person has GW Bush on their watch list. Also, trusted editors (sysops, which there are a good deal of) can temporarily make a page uneditable or block an editor if he keeps making bad edits.
It seems that the people in wikipedia who value good quality and unbiased articles are stronger than those who want to add biased content, and that it is possible to agree on what a good article is. Quite comforting, really.
Looking at the edit history of the George W. Bush article there are some cute edits: [1], [2], [3]
Last edited by Thue; July 4, 2004, 06:54.http://www.hardware-wiki.com - A wiki about computers, with focus on Linux support.
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Originally posted by notyoueither
In other words, the market is natural and anything other than the market is only possible in a small, related group like the Waltons.
Thanks for making it quick.
Markets and the fixation on exchange value only arise when there are large groups of people or inter tribal trade (rare) - because they introduce trust complications and planning complications that the normal values don't work for. But we still have our inculcated sense of fairness. The selfishness required of us by the market system is one that people have a lot of trouble accepting (hence the number of people who will seek a "fair" price rather than the maximum they can get).
To say that capitalism accords with our natural method of distribution and exchange is simply false - it's a whopper of monumental proportions. A Market system - because it arises when people cannot trust in reciprocity - depends on strictly enforced laws to stop people free riding and not payiung their bills. It is in no way natural. Hobbes knew this centuries ago - it's bizarre to have to explain it still.
Worth looking at.
Last edited by Agathon; July 4, 2004, 07:02.Only feebs vote.
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If you have trouble with that idea: consider the way you behave towards your own family.
If your brother needs money, you do not automatically base your decision on what's in it for you; rather you give him the money if you can. The same applies to almost all economic transactions within families - most people would consider it perverse and immoral to behave towards their family members the way they behave towards strangers (the guy at the Kwiki Mart isn't just going to give you things without there being some relatively immediate and identifiable good in it for him).
Primitive communities are a lot like families - in fact they mostly are extended families. Hence their economic behaviour towards each other is much more like that of family members than strangers.
Why do they behave this way? Because that kind of behaviour happened to be better at assuring individual survival than complete selfishness is. Hence, people are naturally altruistic and egalitarian because they share in this evolutionary endowment. Markets only arise once people start to gather in larger groups where the old system doesn't work anymore. But that doesn't stop people having mixed feelings about acting as selfishly as they can towards others and believing that it is somehow wrong. It's because it is unnatural that the market system inspires such mixed feelings.Only feebs vote.
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Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'd rather get my info from somewhere other than the internet equivilant of a bathroom wall.
I like that."In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
—Orson Welles as Harry Lime
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I've replied. Wiki must remain free from owner's propaganda!
And Thue has answered back... it must also remain free from poster propaganda.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
- John 13:34-35 (NRSV)
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Ok, accepting your contention that in small tribes in early human history we lived communally, not in a market system, what example does that provide for us now?
Ideally, I agree with you that small, cooperative groups of people is the best way to go. However, as you pointed out the free market exists because it is the system best able to handle the large numbers of people and large numbers of resources we now use and exchange.
A small commune is allowed and accepted in a free market system, however a free enterprize is not allowed or accepted in a communist system.
The ideal system, then, would be a free market system where people are encouraged (note, NOT forced) to join up in small communes. This provides the best of all worlds.Captain of Team Apolyton - ISDG 2012
When I was younger I thought curfews were silly, but now as the daughter of a young woman, I appreciate them. - Rah
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The OTF deserves an entry of its own.Visit First Cultural Industries
There are reasons why I believe mankind should live in cities and let nature reclaim all the villages with the exception of a few we keep on display as horrific reminders of rural life.-Starchild
Meat eating and the dominance and force projected over animals that is acompanies it is a gateway or parallel to other prejudiced beliefs such as classism, misogyny, and even racism. -General Ludd
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If there is a natural state of human beings, it is relatively egalitarian.
Like when one group went off to bash another group and steal what was there to steal?
You paint a picture of Eden and propose that that, in isolation, is the only natural thing. You promote a myth about our 'natural selves' to argue against the market being natural.
If buying and selling is so unnatural, why does it spring up whenever humans start to gather, like in the first cities?(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.
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Another night of me aimlessly wandering Wikipedia to soak up knowledge. I'm stuck on Indonesian children's rhymes.Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
-Richard Dawkins
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