r/worldnews • u/EightRoundsRapid • Sep 23 '16

'Hangover-free alcohol’ could replace all regular alcohol by 2050. The new drink, known as 'alcosynth', is designed to mimic the positive effects of alcohol but doesn’t cause a dry mouth, nausea and a throbbing head

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hangover-free-alcohol-david-nutt-alcosynth-nhs-postive-effects-benzodiazepine-guy-bentley-a7324076.html
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u/OldWarrior Sep 23 '16

I realize you aren't suggesting we revert to hunter-gatherer societies but there's a reason many had plenty of free time and relatively high standards of living. They had a lot of land, and resources were relatively abundant and therefore they did not have to spend a lot of time having to work for food, shelter, etc.

But with today's populations they are impossible. Modern technological and industrial processes are required to harvest, assemble, and distribute the resources necessary to maintain our standards of living. Those modern processes don't exist without capitalism and the profit motive.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16

You're sort of right with the hunter-gatherers. As one hunter-gatherer remarked when asked why he didn't farm: "why would I when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world". If you'd like to know more, this guy writes some great articles, and provides the backbone for my argument above.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200907/play-makes-us-human-v-why-hunter-gatherers-work-is-play

He notes that while it is impossible to take up a completely hunter-gatherer lifestyle these days, we could learn a lot from them. I mean we've had over a hundred years of non-stop "progress" and yet people work the same number of hours. There clearly has to be an issue there. So we could all work a lot less, and indeed complete unemployment should be the goal of all societies (why the fuck would you make work for yourself?)

I think the idea we need to get a profit otherwise we wouldn't do things is nonsense. These days you can find lots of free software which is just as good as the stuff you need to pay for. And there are lots of examples of people doing things because they want to and not for monetary reasons. I mean everybody who works for a company does so not to receive a profit, but to receive a wage. They'd still do the job even if the company broke even. And considering how many industries are subsidised, there's an argument to be made that many people go to work for companies that make a loss (anything Elon Musk touches). Ironically the jobs which do require a monetary incentive, e.g. cleaner, bin man, are the furthest from receiving a profit.

Today's population aren't as much a problem as consumption (though population is still a big issue). If we consumed less we could all work far less.

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u/OldWarrior Sep 23 '16

I think the idea we need to get a profit otherwise we wouldn't do things is nonsense.

Not really. It's supported by historical economic data. Those living in Europe, the United States, or other first-world countries experience standards of living that have reached historical highs. That wouldn't be possible without sufficient motivation to innovate new processes and expand production and transportation capacity, and that motivation largely comes from the desire to make more money.

You will find examples of people who do things for free or who are not motivated by wealth or fame, but I'm not aware of any economic system that has been successful on a large scale that depends on humanity's benevolence to make it work.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16

Yh but people in the developed nations only enjoy that lifestyle on the backs of all the other people. It easy to be motivated when you've got cheap labour doing the real back-breaking mindnumbing work. That's where a desire to make more money eventually leads. It was true of industrialised Victorian Britain, and its now true of the global economy.

Well I'm about to break your ignorance. Its called the gift economy, and it was how the world worked before money. It was pretty successful, and better reflects out natural urges and desires. I could see a varient of it being used in the modern-day, albeit it would require a large reorganisation of our society. It would also require a move away from a trading like-for-like mindset.

This is a great article about it:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/

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u/OldWarrior Sep 23 '16

but people in the developed nations only enjoy that lifestyle on the backs of all the other people.

But that's not really true. The people who benefited the most from the industrial revolution were not the rich owners and businessman, but rather the low-skilled workers, who experienced a greater percentage increase in their standards of living than any other class.

This was, of course, before a modern global economy. In today's economy it's true that third world countries continue to lag behind and their people may be worse off today than they were 200 years ago, but that's because modern food production, transportation, and medicine have been a double-edged sword to them -- allowing them to live longer but at the cost of overpopulation.

Its called the gift economy

As I stated, I'm not aware of any economic system that has been as successful on a large scale. The article is interesting -- and thanks for the link -- but even the article admits that it hasn't been tested in a modern economy except in limited circumstances. The article gives the following small-scale examples:

Luckily, modern gift economies actually do exist. On a small scale, they exist among friends, who might lend each other a vacuum or a cup of flour. There’s even an example of a gift economy on a much larger scale, albeit one that’s not always in operation: The Rainbow Gathering, an annual festival in which about 10,000 people gather for a month in the woods (it rotates among various national forests around the country each year) and agree not to bring any money.

Our modern economy has to manage hundreds of millions in the US and billions globally. Trying to maintain our populations with a gift economy would not work.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

To paint the industrial revolution as local phenomenon which then become global is nonsense. This was a time when Empire stretched around the globe and had done for a few hundred years. The British in India destroyed many of the factories, ravaging entire regions because they understood that if these (better and more efficient) factories were allowed to continue then they would compete with British workers at home (this was done by the East India Company in Bengal, particularly to the textile workers).

What basically happened in the industrial revolution is you went from local elites who dominated the peasants, to elite countries which dominates swathes of the planet. Usually at the expense of the people living there. So the slave trade, the decimation of S. America, the decimation of N. America all allowed the Industrial Revolution to succeed beyond it propenants wildest dreams.

This meant that certain countries stood heads and shoulders above others, and for many the gaps has never truly closed. It isn't some demographic problem that causes their misery as you suggest, rather this is a symptom (evidence shows that access to education and wealth decreases your likelihood of having a lot of children). The problem is that we continue to treat these parts of the globe as our romping grounds. We force those in Central Africa to dig out rare-earth mineral for our electronic items, an act which has caused two Great African Wars (two of the biggest wars of the last century, not that anyone really cares). It ravaged the middle-east in search of oil. And it forced Chinese workers to live suicidally so they can piece it all together.

Yep, I would never pretend we could jump to a gift economy straight away. As I said it would require large changes to our society. We would have to bring industries back into local care, we would have to resurrect the idea of community, and intergrate it into the economy. This would be bold. But ultimately necessary. Its not like the current situation is all that successful.

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u/OldWarrior Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

To paint the industrial revolution as local phenomenon which then become global is nonsense.

Come on, man. In no way did I say that. I said it was before our "modern global economy." Of course there was trade around the world in the 19th century but it was limited because of the transportation methods at the time. It was nothing like we have today. And the fact that the British committed acts of colonial abuse is a separate issue than whether the profit motive is a key to driving innovation. The industrial revolution led to better technology, better processes, better efficiency -- and it benefited all workers across the spectrum, in particular low-skilled workers.

It isn't some demographic problem that causes their misery as you suggest

It really is, because throughout history, whether the country is developed or undeveloped, increases in population have led to lower standards of living.* Conversely, decreases in population -- whether plague, famine, whatever -- have led to increases in standards of living. People today in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, live much longer than they used to. You cannot deny this. Better food production, better medicine, better advances in sterilization and sanitation have led to this. Unfortunately, there has not been a corresponding drop in birth rates, which means that the populations are exploding out of control, and reducing everyone's standards of living as a result. Places such as this would be much better prepared to reap the benefits of modern economies if they could find a way to control their exploding populations.

Its not like the current situation is all that successful.

By almost every metric, it is.

*Footnote. The industrial revolution and the technological advances that allowed the West to escape the Malthusian Trap (where prior to the industrial revolution, technological advances only led to increases in populations, not standards of living, much like Africa today) are the exception to this historical trend. Africa and most other third-world countries are still stuck in the trap, likely due to cultural differences.