[Skybird]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

You say "egoist" like it's a bad thing. You and I may disagree on the virtues of egoism, but you can hardly agrue against the point that egoism ansd self-interest make things happen.

So does sexual perversions. Or pressing the red button. Or becoming choleric. It makes things happening.

Altruism has nothing on egoism in terms of getting stuff done.

It depends on what gets done. Egoism today does mostly bad things. Altruism focusses not on oneself's benefit, but on the other's benefit.

$5 says that BP will solve this problem more quickly and profitably than you ever could. This is why BP is a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation, and you and I are just spectators. Do you really think that you have thought of anything that BP hasn't thought of? People's livliehoods depend upon an effective solution to this problem. These people are working for a paycheck, they aren't posting opinions on a submarine-simulator forum in their spare time.

The info on the different chemicals was given by insiders.

The most corrupted? Interesting. Why do you believe that? Why would oil be any more corrupted than any other industry? Because they have a lot of money?

Because oil lobby is amongst the strongest there is, lobbying for oil spends more money than other lobbies, and the briberies being given in connection with the oil business surpasses that in most other business fields.

I think you equate money with corruption, Sky. It's not an unreasonable perspective, but it is incorrect. There are a lot of industries, interest groups, lobbies, and people who are a lot more corrupt than the oil business.

Information is one thing, lobbying is a very different thing. And corruption is corruption. Lobbying means manipulating legislation, bypassing the intention of laws, and betraying the voters, claiming more power for lobbyists than the voting people. It is the ultimate hijacking of democracy.

You are quick to blame commerce and induistry for the ills of society. Why?

I blame corrupted commerce and industry lobbies, becasue they are criminal and cause more damage to our socieities than Saddam and Kim Yong Il ever did.

In Brussel, the relation between industry lobbyists and EU members of parliament is said by insiders to be around 50 lobbyists per 1 member of parliament. The relation between industry lobbyists and consumer protection lobbyists is said to be 200:1.

I don't ask these questions to insult or belittle you, Sky, I just want to understand what model of society you would like to see.

Not yours. We have had it for some decades now, and it costed us dozens of trillions, and a whole historic era of freedom and democracy going down the drain. Or better: getting sold away.

Highly unlikely, my friend. We're a huge economy. The largest of any single nation on the planet. That economy is made of over 300 million people, over half of which need to get somewhere on a daily basis. No amount of wisdom or environmental consciousness is going to change that. It all boils down to the agenda of the individual, not that of society.

Wait and see. You are too self-convinced.

If the oil runs out,

No: when.

it will be the market that dictates the change to an alternative fuel source. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. There is no political entity on the planet that can effectively govern the wills of the multitudes. The only thing that politicians can govern is popular sentiment, and even then they only manage to do it in election years. The market is the ultimate judge of all things. Nothing can stand in the way of the Adam Smith's "invisible hand".

I know you live by that old economic theory. Some economists in the Anglosaxon world do that, too. Most economists world-wide do not. Usually the classica economy theory gets presented by people of the establishment who have to loose proifts if the sttaus quo, no matter how desastrous it is, would get massively changed. In other words: corrections get prevented to spend another years with collecting the cream before everything breakes apart.

You do not leanr swimming when jumping into the water the first time - then you would drown. You better learn it before you jump into the deep water.

I stop here, because I think discussions between us are pretty much useless. The world continues to run by either your model and will mess up even more, for the same reasons that you propagate, or it will try new ways, and maybe finds a small chance, however unlikely that is, or messes up anyway. I prefer a small chance over no chance. but never forget on thing - it is the thinling of that economy model you propagate, that has broiught us to where we are: a dysfunctional, corrupted gopobal economy with corrutoped elites and impotent politics that are not independant from the economy lobbies that have taken them hostage.

Actually, as long as I've got you here, what would you say to another chess match? I've been practicing

If you really want that, go ahead. But the Gunny this time will not help you.