a reply to:
theNLBS
My reaction to hearing this is that I want to talk about the content, period. The style is good enough this time so that its not distracting from the
content, which means I think he's good to go. I expect his style will become more polished over time, but the point is, its good enough now to really
focus on the message.
And the message, the things he talked about, pissed me off. The way markets work is they
seek to create conditions which lead to their profits.
Therefore Nike shoes (and their partners) advocate for running. Guitar World (and their partners) push for people to discover their inner rock star.
What does it mean to advocate for a government, or for law enforcement, when the way they profit is through crime? Does it mean to facilitate crime?
Its the same thing with the private sector prisons, and with the military industrial complex.
I was on a science site not too long ago, and one of the smart ones said that a lot of conspiracies happen without anyone knowing they're involved,
without a smoky room full of men in black who know where all the bodies are buried. To see this working, imagine you work with marketing data for a
defense contractor. You find a statistical correlation between investing in a certain company and increased profits soon after. That's enough for you
to invest heavily in that company. What you don't need to know, but is the truth, is that this partner company invests in companies in the middle
east, that buy from people who fund terrorists. So unknowingly funding terrorists increases your profit... But all you saw was the correlation between
an investment pattern and increased profits.
These
invisible hand conspiracies happen all the time. People sitting right in the middle of them may scoff, because they know they aren't
plotting things, they know there's no smoky room. But the conspiracy is happening in effect anyway.
We need to make sure we set things up so defense contractors profit from sustained peace and security, not war, and law enforcement profits from a a
peaceful and law abiding people, not crime. I'm a free market (invisible hand) advocate, but the architects of these ideals, like Adam Smith always
advocated for INFORMATION for market players, people really have to know what they are involved in. In this information age there should be no reason
we don't all know where our money is coming from and going to.
edit on 4-9-2014 by tridentblue because: (no reason given)