overseas manufacturing in developing countries

just different medicine

and yes there's high lead-in times and developmental costs for new medicines, but the price of that type of product in first world markets tends towards the obscene due to nothing more than the economic/social agreement that allows it to be

also I think a lot of the health-related discoveries pre-capitalism were, in the historical perspective, 'the low hanging fruit'

I mean it's hard to do this math in an imaginary socialist world but if we're talking about a slow-growth market economy...

this is the heart of what i'm nagging at. it seems quite possible that the big concerns you raise - destitution and environmental destruction - just cannot be fixed by the kind of market economies we have now

(e.g. 'don't rub feces on sword wounds')

xpost

the economic/social agreement that allows it to be

The consensus that w/o high profits to reward long-term investments and counter the possibility that your drug ends up useless or getting banned, new drugs wouldn't be developed?

yes, essentially?

this is the heart of what i'm nagging at. it seems quite possible that the big concerns you raise - destitution and environmental destruction - just cannot be fixed by the kind of market economies we have now

I think they can w/ heavy global market-based environmental regulation - emissions markets etc.

you could have a university model, where knowledge is pursued for the sake of knowledge

xp

okay, but what about the human impact of increasingly scarce finite resources e.g. oil?

just cannot be fixed by the kind of market economies we have now

We will have growth as long as there are more ppl on the planet when you leave as there were when you came in. The question to me, therefore, is, "Are we a plague for life on theis planet?" If there's any hope that we're not, does it mean we must live considerably less comfortable lives than we do now? Is there any other system than the market that's more likely to provide us with the means, such as new growing techniques or new energy sources, to continue to thrive here on Earth?

everybody moves to big cities, that's always been my answer xp

xxp arguably allocating scarce resources is what market economies are best at.

i dunno if i buy this tho: I think they can w/ heavy global market-based environmental regulation - emissions markets etc.

do you not buy that it will happen in time or that it will work? cause I agree w/ the first half.

We will have growth as long as there are more ppl on the planet when you leave as there were when you came in.

'growth' for the purposes of this discussion being, iiuic, the economic kind (say a nominal global gdp or w/e) this relies on a number of assumptions that aren't necessarily imperative and binding constraints

e.g. oil?

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/unlocking-seaweeds-next-gen-crude-sugar/

darragh, population growth does feed economic growth alongside increases in productivity

once the wind/wave energy dudes get their shit together i'll be living in the new oman, motherfuckers

darragh, population growth does feed economic growth alongside increases in productivity

per capita increases in efficiency, increased asset efficiency through technology, etc- lots of ways in which growth isn't tied to a per capita figure (well, it is but not in a constant straight-line curve)

do you not buy that it will happen in time or that it will work? cause I agree w/ the first half.

yeah, first half. if we had the political will to set and enforce limits, emission markets would be great. i am possibly too defeatist.

My point, though, is that I'm far more sanguine about us finding new awesome shit than I am about feeding 10 billion ppl or dealing with the environmental effects of 7 billion zipping around in their seaweed-ethanol powered vehicles.

this is basically where my thinking has been stuck for years:

"emission markets would be great ... but we'll never do them."

"countries should enforce reasonable standards for wages, hours and benefits. but we'll inevitably be undercut by developing nations and really, how do you even lecture them when so many people are living on $1/day."

halp.

$1 a day isn't a bad wage depending

y'know, depending

it's pretty cool as long as ipads cost $1 in your country

per capita increases in efficiency, increased asset efficiency through technology, etc- lots of ways in which growth isn't tied to a per capita figure (well, it is but not in a constant straight-line curve)

again I think we have to draw a line between different types of economic growth 'spend $1 on ipod app vs. $1 on gas' and, prob more importantly, spend more time thinking about things that aren't included in traditional measure of gdp that are becoming a big part of our lives (what's the economic value of ilx? etc.)

Pretty sure it's a net negative.

no economic value but possible substitute product for more expensive means of entertainment? information exchange on the internet is a bit of a mixed bag to work out economically tbh

well if you wanted a brute force way of calculating it, you could figure out what would every individual here be willing to pay if the alternative was no ilx.

stet it up

if stet required 100k to run the site, could we come up with it? I wonder.

i'd back us for 10k easy

if all your forms of free entertainment simultaneously said "cough up", who would you pay first

ilx, btjunkie

that's about it??

btjunkie

"i wish for a lamp that grants infinite wishes"

haha

but yeah the main idea is that we can always have 'more stuff' as long as stuff is 1s and 0s, or people doing stuff for you, we prob can't always have more stuff as long as stuff is, well, everything else

how much more stuff had you in mind- modern technology has been, in many ways, the breaking down of physical stuff into those 1s and 0s

idgi btjunkie tbh

well you can't bittorrent a house or an SUV

it's too bad cause that would solve the african poverty problem too

you did raise that earlier, tbf.

while nobody has offered the increasingly efficient management of information (and therefore entertainment, communications, financials, etc) as an answer to food shortages or housing crises in disadvantaged areas, these advances nonetheless create extra capacity in the existing global economy that could theoretically (in an ideal world) focus on the problems that stem from material resource and manpower shortages.

it's not 'a rising tide', but it's maybe close- nonetheless, increased efficiencies in any area free up at least those resources in that area that are transferable, basically

well from an environmental pov most peoples' emissions don't come from entertainment/communication/finance. this is partly why I'm an annnoying urbanist cause I think that hyperurban efficiences allow us to live the same 21st century lifestyle w/ less.

also 'free up' - sorta... I mean what's 'extra capacity'? efficiencies bring wealth but nobody w/ that wealth seems to consider it 'extra capacity'. like, with a moderately conservative definition of 'what does a human being need to live a decent lifestyle' we already have plenty of extra capacity w/ the wealth in america and western europe. if the wealthy americans who gain from future efficiences were willing to be taxed on it and allow it all to go to africa, that'd be one thing. ultimately a political problem not an economic one.

redistribution!

guess redistribution doesn't have to happen willingly, but it's important to keep reminding people it will be less painful in the long run if it does

you're picking the problems with my ubersystem as if you don't already agree with the structures in place covering the rest- huge transfer payments to developing economies from first world corps manufacturing and polluting overseas but selling in eeg us markets, enormous carbon taxes, strictly enforced environmental & workforce welfare regulations yaddda yadda yadda

all we need, really, is to get someone in power that will get the ball rolling, i tihnk that this obama dude could be our man

yeah I mean we prob agree in general terms about the big picture solutions, I just think the cultural/political resistence to big picture solutions is p fucking rigid

well yeah but while we're just shooting the shit like

re. emergence of unionisation in Europe and North America in late 19th and early 20th centuries:

feel like the political situation in USA/UK - that whole democratic representation thing - probably contributed

Well, maybe yes, in the UK at least where the unions formed a political party that was able to contest anti-union legislation, but unionisation also occurred to some extent in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian countries like Germany and Russia.

India is not short of trade unionists btw

... having said that, I'm not sure what countries you were referring to originally