I must admit, peanut butter DOES keep me up at night!

[Rhizomorph13]

I like it.

I admite that some of the monsters I see might be windmills. But I assure you that I see less monsters that are windmills than you guys see windmills that are monsters...

I may be crazy, but my overall point is about love and compassion, and doing the right thing, and making correct decisions. That puts me at odds with a lot of the modern world, but my anger is based on my want for everyone to be a fulfilled as possible.

Your a fungi Rhizo

Pippy,

I too have visions of helping the world someway but I have realized that fighting for something is much more productive than fighting against things. It isn't enough to see the problems caused by Walmart and say, "boo Walmart!" because ultimatly there is no added value to crushing Walmart or making laws to protect the workers of Walmart or the businesses that fail when Walmart enters a town. It is much more productive to understand the economy and other forces that are at work and create a better solution that adds value to society. Now to save time just read again with, "Big Phrama" in place of, "Walmart." In fact put any other thing you might dissagree with in place and realize that solutions are much more useful than criticisms.

Trust me, I see how society is broken and agree with some of what you say.

Rhizo

[Pippy]

The first step towards solutions is to figure out what the problems are.

I do study enconomy, that is why I hate Walmart. I am trying to be constructive, in the sense that it is important to discuss these things and not be duped. It is importnat to me to point out that Walmart is eivl, in the sense that it is taking advantage of poeple, and in the sense that it is not sustainable. I think these things should be obvious, but hey, you guys think no-god should be obvious...

I just get worked up when I say Walmart is evil, we should not shop there if we care about our jobs and others call me crazy. It is certainly not constructive towards solving these problems to support walmarts supposed right to act dysfunctionally. Then big Pharma, I can understand it is harder to wrap your head around with and agree, but I see it as dysfunctional as well.

I am trying to start the process of constructive problem solving by pointing out problems, but we can never et past that point, because to some of you they are just windmills.

Although I can get a little hot under the collar, and I could be more constructive and less critical. these are points of ideology, so they are supposed to be black and white.

Let's figure out solutions. We need to hold Pharma accountable for it's actions, which have been very destructive as a whole. But we can't, because some of you will want to defend all the good Pharma has done. So we are stuck on step one, name the problem.

Thanks though for listening mushroom man.
-Pip

[Rhizomorph13]

Pippy,

Things are just things. Good and evil are valuations that tell more about the observer than the observed and nothing has any intrinsic good or evil value. Almost nothing is black and white and part of the maturation process means figuring out that there are other parameters along the spectrum, such as hue, and color saturation.

With Walmart and Big Pharma there is more baby than bath water and you would have us toss all that out the window, which is why you sound nutty to me.

New direction Pip - Instead of defending your ideas against Big Pharma and Walmart I would like you to explain a prefered method for distributing goods and handling the testing and manufacture of pharmaceuticals. What would be a better solution for these problems that both Walmart and Big Pharma has seemed to solve.

Thank you in advance,
Rhizo

[Pippy]

I would try ti rethink the problem solving that I find so flawed. Like any system that i find dysfunctional, it owuld have to be rethought form the top down...

But in a nutshell, causality. I have hyperactivity disorder. Should I take pills that make me "calm down"" if they make me feel very depressed and unable to remain coherent? I mean, really what is the problem? Why am I hyperactive? None of the doctors ask that, they just try to medicate. And not medicate for a fixed term, and then see results, but medicate for life. And does it actually make me not hyperactive to take the pills?

Let me try another. I have depression. Should I take an SSRI to combat that? Would that solve the problem that causes my depression? I don't think so. The symptom of my depression might be managed, but it does nothing to solve whatever is making me depressed. So I would try to set up a system that involved problem solving. The way they force parents (or trick them) into drugging children makes me sick, so I would be much more careful about administering drugs to underage people, as their bodies and minds are still in a crucial growing stage.

Less motive on profit (and especially more and more and more profit), and more motive towards helping people live better lives.

And Walmart, as an aside, I would not let them take advantage of the local or the worker half way around the planet. I would make an economy that functioned, that the bottom line was quality of life, not profit over all else.

If only I were in charge. But I am not, so all I can do is rail against what I see as foolishness and deceit.

No-thing- does have intrinsic value. Medicine is medicine (which is drugs), but there is evil (or good) value in human actions and human interactions. If a tornado kills my friends, to me that becomes and evil tornado. The wind just is, but it's involvement in my life makes me name it one way or another.

The damage being done by the modern world is like that, it is evil because of it's impact. Let me pick another straw, I dislike cancer charities. They make their money perpetually talking about a cure. I really think that is either stupid or misleading (depending on intent). There likley is no cure for cancer, as cancer is part of life. There has to be mutation, and sometimes the copying mechanism breaks down. But these people make their money in a roundabout way, trying to find the cure that will never surface. They never exhibit realistic constructive problem solving.

If I were in charge of a cancer charity, I would foremost ask what is making the incidence of cancers exponentially more common than one or two generations ago? Recently, according to some people, we passed the 1/2 north Americans will die of cancer point. And I don't think that the only factor in that is old age, I think there are things in our modern world with make the inevitability of cancer much, much more likely and virulent. So constructive problem solving would entail finding the causes of an increased cnacer rate, and trying to stop them. Like lobbying to ban or cut dowm cigarette production and consumption...

It's early, and my brain is a little ffurry, hopefully that made sense.

I appreciate your attempt at respectable conversation.
-Pip

[Rhizomorph13]

Pippy,

I appreciate your post and we mostly agree about our societies relationship with medication but this is a crazy thing to say:

None of the doctors ask that, they just try to medicate. And not medicate for a fixed term, and then see results, but medicate for life.

Doctors and scientists work hard to troubleshoot down to the cause and this statement is just false. When they medicate people they usually talk to them about what they would need to do to get off the medication if that is even an option. For example when a doctor prescribes blood pressure medicine the script will always come with advice about reducing stress, stopping smoking, losing weight, and getting more exercise. There might be some doctors that are in league with the reptilian overlords(sorry something broke in my head when I was reading about the overlords and now I must inject them in every post!) and there tempting money but most people in the medical profession have their heart in the right place.

The way they force parents (or trick them) into drugging children makes me sick, so I would be much more careful about administering drugs to underage people, as their bodies and minds are still in a crucial growing stage.

Yeah! This bugs the shiznizzle out of me too!

I would make an economy that functioned, that the bottom line was quality of life, not profit over all else.

Um, by doing what? Pressing the, "Economy work now." button? Methinks you need to be more specific when describing how to fix the economy.

No-thing- does have intrinsic value. Medicine is medicine (which is drugs), but there is evil (or good) value in human actions and human interactions. If a tornado kills my friends, to me that becomes and evil tornado. The wind just is, but it's involvement in my life makes me name it one way or another.

I get what you are saying, but I would say you should ditch words like good, bad, and evil because they really add no value except as a rhetorical device to signal to the reader how you feel about something.

Ok, so now the bad news. Your post was still just a rant about how broke things are and there was the same hysterical rhetoric I've come to know you by. It is one thing to say, "I have a knife that won't even slice through a tomato." or "The knife needs to work better." (both are just different forms of complaining about the problem) and quite another to say, "You need a sharpener to hone the blade." or "The blade is too chipped to be sharpened so you will need a new knife. You can buy one at Excalibur in the mall; I would suggest you buy a Kershaw blade because they provide free sharpening for life." (Both statements provide a solution."

This is the real solution to what ails the planet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Thank you for your time,
Rhizo

PS I actually DO have a gang of ideas about how to improve society but I will wait until you punt out a servicable idea of your own.

[Pippy]

Step one, rail and bitch about what is wrong. Also known as adressing the problem.

When I say that an economy based on profit is bad, I am not just talking out of my ass. In my own little life I use that to help make my "ac' right rules". So I personally don't do anything for the monetary gain. That is the first step of solution, is to incorporate change in the areas of your life that have been deemed a problem.

I have a ton of ideas, but the first is always identifying a wrong to be righted.

[theVOID]

How about this for a simple yet effective start:

Lower business taxes in balance with a mandatory increase in the minimum wage and a slight percentage increase to all wages and salaries.

The govt loses tax revenue from businesses but regains it from personal income tax while ensuring the employees directly benefit.

[Pippy]

but business tax is very, very low. Over here in Canada they have taken a page from the Americans and pay about 2% income tax. With offshore tax evasion, and free trade loop holes, corps pay a lot less tax than individuals. I would say increase business tax, or at least force them to comply to the current rate like they do the citizens.

But that would be a tight little idea, I like it. It doesn't create money out of nothing, which mars most peoples economic solutions.

All of these modern economic wonders, like globalization, did mean more top end. But we the little guy got no extra money, no extra savings, and no incentive or profit. It could be cheaper to make things on a global scale, but that has only gone to make the ceo and policy makers much richer.

The same old problem with consolidation of wealth.

[theVOID]

but business tax is very, very low. Over here in Canada they have taken a page from the Americans and pay about 2% income tax. With offshore tax evasion, and free trade loop holes, corps pay a lot less tax than individuals. I would say increase business tax, or at least force them to comply to the current rate like they do the citizens.

But that would be a tight little idea, I like it. It doesn't create money out of nothing, which mars most peoples economic solutions.

All of these modern economic wonders, like globalization, did mean more top end. But we the little guy got no extra money, no extra savings, and no incentive or profit. It could be cheaper to make things on a global scale, but that has only gone to make the ceo and policy makers much richer.

The same old problem with consolidation of wealth.

That low? That's insanely low... No wonder the government needs monetary bribes from special interest groups to fund things...

Here the lowest tax bracket is 18% going up to 33% and businesses pay around 23%.

So here it would be effective, lower business tax to 18% while increasing the minimum wage significantly and making a mandatory increase to all wages and salaries with the remaining amount saved in lower taxation. The government wouldn't be losing too much money, businesses wouldn't notice much of a hit in their book and minimum wage earners get a significant boost with a small increase to the rest of the workforce.

[Pippy]

Yeah, corps should pay about 12-20%, but Mel Hurtig's new book shows StatsCan proving that some big corps pay as little as 2%, some years they get away with paying nothing. Not a penny.

They got that idea from America, there is a ton of Yanque influence in this country, mostly in a bad way. Here taxes are higher, I am well below the poverty line and pay about 28% tax. It irks me, because when I first got here (to Canada) we had never fought a foreign war of aggression, and we touted the world over as peacekeepers. There were so many nice differences between America and Canada. Those differences are going fast. We have been in an illegal immoral war for years and years, and the average Canadian was so quick to take up the southern rhetoric of "support our troops". Yeah, I support them in demanding the government only asks them to give their lives if it is absolutely necessary. But we were warned about that, how the Canadian military would become a wing of the American. So yeah, I pay my taxes (although I have never once filed a return, for thousands of dollars they can do the paperwork themselves), and what do I get. I never go to the hospital. I don't drink milk or eat much meat (huge subsidies). I don't use the roads. I would not get UI if I asked with a 40% approval rate and a 9 billion dollar surplus.

It reminds me of home, but at least there we have a good reason to stop paying taxes. The federal reserve act, and constitutionally supported supreme court rulings show that the American system is as they say "Voluntary". It really gets me that I 'm back to paying my money for bombs to be dropped on brown people. Pack up the mule, we're fucking refugees of conscience again.

and that's me angry at the true north.