We seem to be a fairly serious bunch here. But the following link is to an article entitled "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7954001.stm
Two questions:
1) if aliens have advanced themselves enough to be able to travel at near light speed to cross the galaxy, could they have possibly developed such technology and prosperity without true capitalism? This of course would require sound money and no government intervention. Essentially the true Libertarian society.
2) If they looked like the alien women of the good'ol Captain Kirk days and offered to take you back to their planet, would you go?
"It's a cookbook"
Long live pointless intellectual wankery.
To darkness I condemn you...
Of course there's capitalism on other planets. Ever heard of the Ferenghi? They're all about their latinum-based currency (which, BTW, should tell us something; if the most capitalistic fictional race demands a commodity-based money, there's got to be a good reason).
The Rev
Lifes a piece of shit, when you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true
Just remember it's all a show, keep em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you
UFO scares in England, as one in the article you linked to, are mostly caused by Scandinavians like me visiting. Partly because of our accent and poor English, but also just for fun some times... And no, we don't have much capitalism here in Scandinavia either.
Like the Apollo program was a huge waste of resources, so would trying to bridge the huge empty space between star systems, which takes many years even with tremendous energies used. Civilizations which are capitalist will find better uses of their resources. Socialist ones, well, they are so used to long waiting times anyway so they might be more inclined to do it, I suppose...
More seriously, considering the scenario, technology advances extremely fast on an astronomical time scale. See what happened on Earth since the steam engine was invented less than 200 years ago! What technology will we have, and what would "we" be like in 2000 years? In 20 000 years? in 200 000 years? We wouldn't recognize ourselves.It is very unlikely that an alien civilization able to travel to us, is anywhere near our level of technology. They are likely to be millions of years older (Earth is over 4 billion years old). Therefor, they would relate to us much like we relate to ants. Have you tried to communicate with ants? Have you tried to teach them what's right and wrong, to stay in peace with each other, to transfer technology to them? Of course not! They are simply background material to you. Neither would any aliens coming here try anything of the kind with us humans. They might collect some DNA samples for statistical purposes, drill a hole to the center of the Earth, turn the Moon upside down or do whatever they, for whatever reason, find interesting to do. But we will not have any kind of relationship with them.
To answer your question. Capitalism is based on individuality. Maybe alien life systems don't even have that, like our ants don't (all ants in a colony are genetically identical, they are more like mobile cells in of one and the same body). Aliens might not even be intelligent, but have something which is far superior to that. Based on the possibility of huge fundamental differences, and the fact that they must control very exotic technologies in order to come here, I doubt that we could identify anything with them which is capitalistic. Capitalism is good for humans. Ants and aliens might thrive under different conditions.
It's not fascism when the government does it.
“We must spend now as an investment for the future.” - President Obama
ProudCapitalist: UFO scares in England, as one in the article you linked to, are mostly caused by Scandinavians like me visiting. Partly because of our accent and poor English, but also just for fun some times... And no, we don't have much capitalism here in Scandinavia either. Like the Apollo program was a huge waste of resources, so would trying to bridge the huge empty space between star systems, which takes many years even with tremendous energies used. Civilizations which are capitalist will find better uses of their resources. Socialist ones, well, they are so used to long waiting times anyway so they might be more inclined to do it, I suppose... More seriously, considering the scenario, technology advances extremely fast on an astronomical time scale. See what happened on Earth since the steam engine was invented less than 200 years ago! What technology will we have, and what would "we" be like in 2000 years? In 20 000 years? in 200 000 years? We wouldn't recognize ourselves.It is very unlikely that an alien civilization able to travel to us, is anywhere near our level of technology. They are likely to be millions of years older (Earth is over 4 billion years old). Therefor, they would relate to us much like we relate to ants. Have you tried to communicate with ants? Have you tried to teach them what's right and wrong, to stay in peace with each other, to transfer technology to them? Of course not! They are simply background material to you. Neither would any aliens coming here try anything of the kind with us humans. They might collect some DNA samples for statistical purposes, drill a hole to the center of the Earth, turn the Moon upside down or do whatever they, for whatever reason, find interesting to do. But we will not have any kind of relationship with them. To answer your question. Capitalism is based on individuality. Maybe alien life systems don't even have that, like our ants don't (all ants in a colony are genetically identical, they are more like mobile cells in of one and the same body). Aliens might not even be intelligent, but have something which is far superior to that. Based on the possibility of huge fundamental differences, and the fact that they must control very exotic technologies in order to come here, I doubt that we could identify anything with them which is capitalistic. Capitalism is good for humans. Ants and aliens might thrive under different conditions.
I think this demonstrates why natural law is necessarily species dependent.
Where I come from, the women don't glow, but the men definitely plunder.
food for thought
You've had all night and day toConsider and prayYou've brought fire on my head andNow you must pay.
Babylon makes the rules where my people suffer
1) the only way they could develop highly advanced technology they would need to get here would be through extremely competitive markets. No monopoly government space agency could ever develop the time-warping transportation required for intergallactic travel.
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/technology/space.html
2) no.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
revolutionist:I think this demonstrates why natural law is necessarily species dependent.
No, I don't mean polylogism.
But there might be stages of development far beyond what we can imagine today. Aliens might be purely evolutionary. Not acting deliberately, but having evolved a behavior that takes them to us. That would make praxeology inapplicable to them. Or they might somehow be beyond intelligent. They might also have eliminated individualism by bridging the gap between the subjectiveness of different individuals. Assume that we could make two brains (or minds) merge, so that each of the two individuals directly can experience the other's emotions and thoughts without communication!
What we know, because of the vast distances and huge age difference between star systems, relative to the time scale of technological development, is that an alien civilization will not be contemporary with ours. Even if they are DNA-based and once originated from an Earth-like planet, you will not confuse them with Scandinavians, like that lady in the article did when walking her dog! And they might not even be a phenomena to which capitalism is applicable.
An advanced alien civilization would not need free-market capitalism in each of the alien beings were identical in the needs, abilities, and tastes. They could simply have an alien master giving orders, and they would happily obey.However, if the alien beings differ in their needs, abilities, and tastes, we could safely assume that they are not all equally productive. They would need a competitive market environment that rewards that most productive and allows them to increase their productivity. If you are trying to colonize the universe, you need some pretty productive entrepreneurs.
Maybe an alien civilization is only one single individual? Maybe all materia in a whole planet has been organized into one single brain/mind/computer? (What a Robinson Crusoe!) I've read that in principle, the highest rate of calculations is possible in plasma state. The problem is instability, but maybe aliens have solved that. Maybe they ARE plasma, like the Sun is.
Don't you guys have any sense of proportions when it comes to how ancient and vast our galaxy is? And how fast technology accelerates towards "singularity"? It's not like Armstrong will land here in a tin pod and stick a flag in the ground (and talk to us with some accent).
Monkeys don't run a capitalist system, do they? They couldn't do it even if we tried to teach them. Why would post-humans be captialist? They would be post-capitalist.
ama gi:1) the only way they could develop highly advanced technology they would need to get here would be through extremely competitive markets. No monopoly government space agency could ever develop the time-warping transportation required for intergallactic travel.
Or were millions of years older than us.
Just a possibility.
Morty: ama gi:1) the only way they could develop highly advanced technology they would need to get here would be through extremely competitive markets. No monopoly government space agency could ever develop the time-warping transportation required for intergallactic travel.Or were millions of years older than us. Just a possibility.
The problem with socialism is not that it progresses slower than capitalism, and therefor maybe needs an extra million years. Socialism quickly (within a few generations) degenerates into hunting/gathering/looting in small (family) teams, because they have no property and therefor no pricing system and therefor no trade and therefor specialization of labor is impossible (incalculable) and therefor noone can produce beyond what he/she him/herself can see, touch, understand and remember. Like animals instinctively grazing the ground. Socialism is the end of social life (which maybe explains the word itself?)
However, from there on evolution might evolve into some other civilization potent form of life, after some millions of years. For example, the brains of squirrels might start growing, if trees evolve into giving more nutritious nuts...
And neither does he. Polylogism involves minds which do not reason as ours do (inferences from premises to conclusions.) What such a "logic" would look like of course, no proponent of this theory has ever uttered. Perhaps because they're full of shit. A mere digression. As for natural law, given that it purports to be based on the thing's nature it is of course to be expected that it will be to an extent species-specific.
To defend the thesis though, mankind has had socialism since the pyramids and as a whole has progressed -perhaps not as much as possible no -but we have progressed and all of this with socialism. Truly this is more a matter of historical development than one of economic theory.
As for the ferengi, they also have a nasty habit of pilaging other civilizations for loot and are centrally controlled by a bureaucratic commerce commission. AKA they are classic mercantilists. I personally believe that the most free market society in star trek is the borg -ironically enough.
Well, socialism is idealized here. It's the system where there exists no property (at least not of goods other than consumer goods). In practice, such a system is not possible to impose to 100%. Black markets will arise, secret police agents will deflect, bureaucrats will convert and sabotage the socialist project and so on. Socialism can in practice only exist as a parasite: it needs a productive host to feed off! (A.k.a. mixed economy)
A mixed economy, i.e. productivity parasited by destruction, will advance slower, and at times retard. But it will basically recover since socialism will necessarily receede once the bottom of survivability is reached, which will happen once in a while.
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