In some cases, Mr. Market pushes us towards suboptimal solutions to problems because the incentives for society as a whole don't align with the incentives of the people making the decisions. E.g. fossil fuel consumption, tasty prepackaged junkfood, disposable consumer electronics, collateralized debt obligations, overfishing, and any Apple software.
I agree that the "ethos" of the market pre-elects many of our decisions for us. It is the "survival of the fittest" in corporate lingo. We have been on that twisted and misused Darwin train for a while.
How did Apple get thrown in there though? With a smaller market share it is an awesome option but its not being forced on anyone.
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Different points not necessarily at you Sol.
@everyone
We don't have to invent our way out of catastrophe. We just have to change ourselves and our behavior. We have deep seated expansionist culture and no where to go. Except maybe Mars but that is not a permanent stop.
The problem is we need to stop conquering nature-- we can't do it without killing ourselves.
"As the apple tree apples, the earth peoples"-- Alan Watts
We are the earth. It is not something we live on and use. We can not live without it. We have to take a canned version into space with us. It is our mother. She feeds us. Poison her and we are dead.
So our culture should not be run by the market; even though, it will have a strong influence for as long as I can see simply because it works. Profits are self sustaining-- meaning they are self motivating. They have a constant agenda fighting for them-- for more profits.
Here is where we have to get involved. Because profits need to be checked when they majorly disrupt future profits. Future profits should be subsidized and short term profits should be heavily penalized. Short term leads to Easter Isle and is generally more insulant to all "stake holders" involved.
Applied to society.
We can't keep expanding into the suburbs because this feeds the dependance on oils and destroys more land in the process. We can't and shouldn't develop all land. Anyone saying we are are underdeveloped needs to realize that asphalt is not a biosphere and Phoenix and L.A. are over 100 miles wide and sucking rivers dry-- literally. Half of the river is probably laying in miles of pipe trying to get to someones yard.
Metro needs to be affordable in a way that makes the suburbs an extravagance-- and a wasteful stupid one.
The future youth should have an argument like this: "Move out of the city, why? I don't want to pay for a car. My rent is 1/5 of what it would be out there. I can walk to or ride the lateral escalator to anywhere I want free. Anything I want is near me. It is cheaper. Why not just spend that money on recreation in the wilderness, and maybe camp near the wild horses and buffalo? I don't want wild wolves at the back door of my home and I don't want to kill them either. Only a mad man irresponsible with his money would live out somewhere that is five times as expensive and has none of our great city services. I mean he can't even visit the 24 hour cafeteria and eat a meal for 30 cents. He pays $5 and has to wash his own dishes. Thats stupid. No, I don't what to do that."
Thats what it should and probably will sound like eventually.
Applied to the Market.
Despite economic doctrine taught to you in school-- Interest is the catalyst to growth. It is the reason you need growth.
You borrow $1 from the money pool and must pay back a $1.10 to the same money pool. You can only do that if someone else borrows $1.10 to pay you and now he needs someone to borrow $1.21 to pay him. Our current debt based money system is a serious problem. It needs population growth to continue so more people can borrow money.
A quick solution would be eliminating all interest and making borrowing really hard to do except in certain cases like housing. A premium could be charged for a house but interest would not. You see the premium would insure you wouldn't be selling anytime soon and the zero interest would insure you saved money. It also wouldn't require growth to pay back. Your money would also retain its value and you could just keep it in a bank. Interest wouldn't be around to drive the need to grow and very restrictive credit would remove inflation.
Why not do this? Because the 1% has been making busloads of money raping you and your ancestors for a long time. They don't want to give that up. They wouldn't be able to buy a 100 meter yacht that way. Nope fuck you and your kids and the environment. They want a boat.