Biden: "Every single great idea in the last 200 years has required government vision and incentive, page 3

privacy

Pages: << 1 2 3 >>
ATS Members have flagged this thread 4 times

reply posted on 27-10-2010 @ 10:11 AM by peck420

reply to post by maybereal11

Both of your examples fit the laziness bill quite well, thanks!

We like to think of ourselves doing noble things for noble reasons, but lets face it, if given the choice most of us would rather be doing "something else". This holds fairly well for 95% of the population, you start a job, get all excited, do great, get bored, and finally want to do "something else".

Well, we can't always change jobs, so what do we do? We invent something that makes our job easier (the laziness part) so that we have more time to do that "something else".

The problem (I guess benefit) is that we are not easily satsified, so we keep inventing more things that allow us to do more "something else's".

reply posted on 27-10-2010 @ 10:37 AM by maybereal11

reply to post by peck420

All the way up to and shortly after the industrial revolution it was common for folks to have multiple different careers throughout thier lives. That is obviously no longer the case, but I would reccomend it for anyone that can pull it off. Life is an adventure....and it is short.

also...from a philosophical standpoint, most agree that it was the invention of agriculture and herding that represented our departure from the animal kingdom. The extra time it afforded us not having to hunt or gather on a daily basis is what spurred everything else that followed. We also enjoyed a population boom...no longer being strictly tied to droughts that would reduce the population of any species that didn't have a convenient storehouse of food. It's really quite amazing when you think about it....one day..some human decided to plant the seeds near thier hut to make life easier and some human thought for a moment...what if we built a fence and instead of spending energy hunting and immediately eating that wild boar/mountain goat etc...we let it live and reproduce...penned in right beside out hut. Two simple ideas that radically altered the course of humans, diverting them from the animal kingdom.

reply posted on 27-10-2010 @ 10:43 AM by Becoming

madnessinmysoul :

reply to post by Becoming

If it's so easy, why did you bother wasting a reply on telling me to google it myself?

If you are discussing an issue with someone and you provide a number, you provide the evidence. You don't tell someone else to find the evidence to support your numbers.

That's just the logical way a debate has to work out.

I'm not debating the number with you. You can stay willfully ignorant and not look it up and educate yourself or look it up and teach yourself something.

I could understand wanting me to post something that is hard to find, but you are just showing laziness.

edit on 27-10-2010 by Becoming because: jacked quoting someone up and threw a quick fix in.

reply posted on 27-10-2010 @ 11:04 AM by SeekerofTruth101

Originally posted by peck420
The vast, and I mean VAST, majority of research and invention happens by private business' and citizens.

The big problem is none of (well almost none of) these inventions are used or interacted on by the majority, so nobody cares.

Go look up the patent lists, and you will see hundreds, even thousands of new patents every year.

My name is on 76 this year .

And not one of mine will ever see news headlines or big stories.

Why? Because if it doesn't effect you directly, you don't care.

To say that these were done by government incentive or foresight is assinine.

PS: The mother of invention is laziness.

We invented the car so we wouldn't have to walk.
The gun so we wouldn't have to get close to kill.
Etc, etc, etc, we invent better ways to not have work .

In our ancient past, majority of our ancestors were only serfs to Monarchies around the world. They were uneducated and kept stupid. Only the indolent rich elites bothered about invention, and only if they could raise themselves off their soft warm beds. Some of the common masses were gifted with extraordinary intelligence and it was they, through such thoughts and conceptions filled our world with wonders of technology.

Today, majority of our generations are fully educated and thus the pool of creativity is much higher, which will allow techonological advances to grow even faster.

The whole purpose of technological advances is about necessity. One can invent a swiss tool similar with the swiss knife, but if it is not necessary, it will never go beyond the patent office, just as many thousands are kept there filed away gathering dust.

Imagine if the whole world has just a factory, and every worker only produces slippers. Then who will produce the TV sets, the mobile phones and the computers? Technologies free up workers to produce other products necessary to the evolution of humanity. And this is not a theory but a fact, for within a simple 200 years of freedom to the masses, we lept from agricultural serfdom to the moon.

And technological advances will only further our species evolution, beyond what one can imagine today, so long as it is responsibly done and not akin to the route of atomic energy or the enslavement through globalisation, of which we must mature or we will only face doom.

Without govt ( We the People) aid, many of today's current tech would not have seen the light of day. The govt (We, the People) is involve in redistributing wealth and safety through social expenditure programmes, and are the biggest buyers and spenders of technology in it, such as the military and education.

Bill Gates may had invented an operating system for the computer, or had been educated through social (We the People) expenditure on education to be able to even conceptualise something like it, but it was only through the support and funding by the govt(We, the People).either in purchases or research, just like many other small timers turned into Corporations today.

Yet today, these facists bit the hand that had feed them, and after bribing and corrrupting our representatives, grown fat from such scams, and hoarded bailout by govts (We Humanity), now wants mankind to hands off their deplorable ways of corporatist facists control and way of life?

edit on 27-10-2010 by SeekerofTruth101 because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 28-10-2010 @ 11:42 AM by billyjack

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

Seeker are you implying that corporatists are the only parties to corruption and bribes? Please take off the blinders and look at the corruption in Washington,DC. The Tarp funding alone demonstrated vast corruption if one only looks at the 100% pay off of the mortgage derivatives to Goldman from Tarp funds paid into AIG. I can't think of anything more corrupt than the Auto $50. billion that stiffed the rightful owners and debtors of GM and preserved the Union perks that broke them in the first place as a constituency pay off by the Democrats.

Biden needs to get off the pipe. While he's at it let look at other inventions, the Chinese Government's incredible idea about the 5 year plans that resulted in the death of 50,000,000 people. I also think we need to consider the re-education plan invention of Pol Pot in Cambodia responsible for murdering 3,000,000 and lets not leave out the government inventions of Stalin resulting in the murder of 30,000,000 Russians.

All members of the church of Secular Socialism have a belief in a Supreme Government just like Biden, who's beliefs cannot be shaken by mere facts that it has been a failure every time it has been instituted, resulting in vast corruption, consolidation of wealth to fewer hands and ultimately mass murder.

reply posted on 28-10-2010 @ 12:05 PM by SeekerofTruth101

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

Unfortunately, you are the one to take off the blinders from your eyes.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Communism is dead in this current modern world. Humans realised that and overthrow those powers. Look at the many states that had overturned communism or are in the process of doing so, a long and difficult road as many of them are not as well armed as American citizens.

Thus your examples of supreme power by authoritarian govt rule is outdated and flawed.

Today, we face a more menacing form of authoritarian rule - facism. Just like any marketing or advertising campaign that only focused on the lies or illusions of a product, so too will the facade of facism be presented to mankind.

Corporatists are different from communists, for in their greedy desire for wealth and power, they know how valuable human capital resource is, a pragmatism learnt from their small timer days to hustle a couple of bucks. Corporatist will not resort to murder if unnecessary, for there are many ways to skin a cat to turn them into obedient slaves.

Such is the fate that awaits humanity from the industrial-military complex as well as the corrupted potical party, grown rich and powerful off the back of citizens hard earned monies.

Socialism, or whatever label you wish to cast aspersions on to support your weak hypothesis and mental deficiency, IS NOT A CHURCH. It is only a political doctrine, one amongst many, with aims to elevate humanity to greatness through the sharing of productive effort, intelligence and wealth, leaving none behind and treating all equally, or as much as the effort they put in for the collective whole, with consensus rule unlike other authoritarian models of political dictates.

There is no free lunch on Earth. Everything comes with a price. So too will socialism be, but at least, it will be for the collective whole with a more consensual secular form of govt that attempts to leave none behind, each to progress at their mental and physical state supported by others whom are strong, a debt of honour to be returned in kind with later generations.

Had USA been a democratic socialist state? By historical evidence, it most certainly had, as every american forefather cared about one another, until some greedy knaves worldwide saw the potential for wealth with a industrialised nation got too greedy, created the great depression and lost much of their wealth and power, and were determined at all cost to retain such powers.

WW2 with an american victory saw that growth to power and through such collusions, facism was borned under the facade of democracy through the corruption of the People's representatives. As for what happened next, we are only experiencing the end result of lies, illusions and shattered dreams today.

Under authoritarian political doctrines, none will survive in an utilitarian and corrupt rule. There are no benevolent humans, for each and everyone is flawed, just as you and I are. I dare not even trust myself to rule alone with absolute power, dare you?

edit on 28-10-2010 by SeekerofTruth101 because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 28-10-2010 @ 12:50 PM by Intelearthling

Originally posted by chiponbothshoulders
Lincoln was the last good guy.

Been schmucks ever since,with few exceptions.

There's a quote by Lincoln, and I'll find it, that he wanted to provoke the south into an armed conflict by blocading Charleston, SC. It worked and if anyone is to blame about the Civil War, it'll have to be "goog ole" Abe Lincoln.

How good is he now? I've always considered the enemy.

EDIT: To keep on topic, the reason that the United States were great at coming up with great ideas is because the government kept their nose out of innovation. The freedom enjoyed by inventors can;t be enjoyed today because of government intrusiveness.

To Joe Biden: We don't need any more of your stupid quotes. Got enough now to write a book.

edit on 28/10/10 by Intelearthling because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 29-10-2010 @ 09:54 AM by SeekerofTruth101

Originally posted by Intelearthling
To Joe Biden: We don't need any more of your stupid quotes. Got enough now to write a book.
edit on 28/10/10 by Intelearthling because: (no reason given)

It is YOU that don't need Joe Biden's qoutes, and in topic, that particular qoute on the title thread. He was only stating an universal truth, and if you dont need such truths, then enjoy living in your fantasy world.

Truths are often painful when one finds it, for it shatters all delusions and illusions we self create with our own individual perceptions, desires and beliefs. We realized then the errors of our misconceptions.

But nevertheless, IT IS a reality we must all courageously face, and correct our errors and mistakes, and only then will progress come.

If not, the pain will only become full blown later on, for fantasies, lies and deceptions will never last, as it never did for the tower of economic fraudalence fabricated by the corporatists and their corrupted politicians which crumbled before our eyes.....

reply posted on 29-10-2010 @ 05:15 PM by madnessinmysoul

reply to post by mnemeth1

Originally posted by mnemeth1
The market directs research dollars to where there is the greatest market demand.

Exactly, that's why erectile dysfunction and hair loss are two great places to get funding. Greatest market demand doesn't mean the best allocation of funds.

If the market doesn't fund ALS research it is because the research dollars might be better put to use searching for a cure for cancer.

...there is no cure for 'cancer'. People don't seem to understand that 'cancer' isn't one big sort of problem. There are so many different forms of cancer and it's actually very obvious that research money going into cures and treatments for it are directed differently to research different forms of cancer.

As for ALS, it's a far more devastating disease. People can survive the most common forms of cancer with modern treatments, but ALS is still a slow death sentence.

There is a finite amount of resources in an economy - money that is put to use searching for an ALS cure is necessarily NOT put to use funding cancer research.

And how is that a bad thing? There's a lot of funding going towards erectile dysfunction, that's money that isn't going towards anything useful.

The economy can not do both at the same time if the resources do not exists for this to occur.

Yes, but you're acting like it's a decision between two things. Cancer research is probably the best funded in terms of currently incurable disease.

Politicians can not magically create additional resources out of thin air.

Yes, and they don't tend to tax cancer research.

Because bureaucrats are directing research rather than the market, the greatest needs of the economy go left unfulfilled.

Yes, because further research into hair loss and weight loss drugs are more necessary than research into ALS.

Robbing people to pay politically connected research institutions results in stagnant growth and misdirected resources.

Ok, please show me how research grants are allocated by political connectedness and show me how it creates 'stagnant growth'.

In fact, show me instances where private institutions have been responsible for the greatest breakthroughs in science.

Violence can not solve complex social problems.

Again, this thread, like so many others, isn't about your personal ideological views on taxation. I've repeatedly told you that we can talk about them separately if you'd like to start a thread about it.

reply posted on 29-10-2010 @ 05:20 PM by wcitizen

Ahem, except there were no great government ideas in the last 200 years - except perhaps the one to enslave the people and remove all their wealth - would that be what he is referring to?

reply posted on 29-10-2010 @ 05:22 PM by wcitizen