Could you name one of those "self-less people"? <You need both self-interested people and (let's call them) self-less people to make the world spin... > I can't think of one that I have ever come across. Some cultists are sort of selfless - they mindlessly follow orders of their boss in exchange for some food and a place to sleep. But even they make sure they are getting their rewards, small though they are.
But even those mindless automatons are not selfless because they believe in their cult, their personal "us" and they will fight tooth and nail, even to dying in suicide attacks, to defend their cult. They are not self-less really. They believe the non-cult people do not count and even must be eliminated. Their self is imbued with cult ideology and they give their all.
I can't think why I'd need self-less people.
<We also need lots of people to work in factories and fields. > No I don't. I'm quite happy for robots to do as they do and drive combine harvesters across miles of wheat, corn grapes and barley to robotically collect the food. It's impressive to see car factory robots manufacturing cars and huge nuclear reactors and hydroelectric power stations pouring out gigawatts of electricity to power the robots and make all my motors go with nobody there other than a couple of security guards. I much prefer to have an automatic machine tool cut a long copper or steel rod into hundreds of little bits in minutes instead of me having to get cutting oil mist in my eyes and lungs while I carefully machine every tiny surface, taking hours. It was very hard work loading hay from dawn to a hour after dusk, 15 hours non-stop hard manual labour, earning 1c per bale, and it's much better to have a machine zoom around the field collecting, rolling and storing the hay, no manual labour required. I did get fitter and stronger than any time in my life, but I can go swimming in the ocean waves if I want a bit of exercize. We [Zenbu] have a half-rack full of servers which whizz gigabytes of data around Cyberspace at near-zero cost. They work day and night, non-stop, never complain and seem very happy doing it. It used to take a small army of people to move that much information on film and paper, costing $millions, consuming huge amounts of paper, fuel, and everything else. Those people are all freed up to do more useful things that are more fun for them to do.
<Why should everyone have to spend their lives trying to make more and more money? > Because it's good to do things that other people appreciate. It's fun. It helps the person who buys the products and services and the money helps the people who invent and produce the products and services. People have to do it because the Cosmos does not owe us a living. From the moment we are born, we are potential dinners for quadrillions of microbes and bigger beasts, all hungry, wishing to convert our protein into their purposes. If you stop moving and spending your life ensuring your continued existence, you will find your existence ceases. We are mobile immune systems, avoiding being crushed by rocks and buses, avoiding being eaten, frozen, drowned, burned, poisoned, dehydrated, starved, or otherwise demised. Everyone has to spend their lives avoiding all of those. When you fail to avoid, you cease to exist. Earning money is one of the best ways of helping other people avoid their demise and an excellent way to keep the wolf from your door.
One of the great things about money is you can store up some value so you don't have to be active every single day. You can goof off for a while and use your stored wealth [money] to have a break and plan some other adventures and useful things to do.
No it can't: <I think it can be argued that environmentally, it is better for the planet to have less entrepreneurs, less consumers, less hoarders... > Go on, try to make the argument. I will explain how your arguments are wrong.
Mqurice |
