I think the problem is actually the stock trade. Companies start doing evil shit for infinite growth.
Investment as a form of collaboration and results distribution is probably fine. Tho, I would not be opposed to limits on size/scale for companies, individual wealth, pay ratios, etc.
Shorts, options, and other “exotic financial instruments” are worse than gambling because they compel corrupting (withering) behavior.
I think an active, forceful SEC based by a similarly aggressive DOJ, both focused on benefit-to-working-class primarily and market-health (e.g. lack of rent seeking, monopolistic, or monosoponistic behavior) secondarily, would lead toward a better (for global society) market. I think that could be true even if we continued to allow fairly arbitrary contracts that are those “exotic financial instruments”, options, and shorts.
I think you’re right that stock trading has enabled a lot of bad and perhaps shouldn’t have been allowed. At least on a large scale beyond a single town or county. Paper certificates for money may have been a bad idea too. Even the use of a common currency like gold may have been a net negative. I think a barter system has positives over a common currency in that it requires people to work together and form communities.
Anything you do where “your money makes money” is ultimately coming from the effort of other people.
Completely fine by me. They need money for their endeavour, I give them money and expect something in return. I see nothing inherently wrong or unfair with that.
Developers generally rely heavily on loans for building new homes, and America is short some 8 million affordable homes currently (and the gap keeps growing)
Yes, but that isn’t about investing in businesses, that is about allowing these businesses to buy up land and overcharge for rent. You could very easily solve this by regulation (e.g. capping rents and prohibiting property speculation)
Capital-class behavior. Nearly as bad as rent-seeking.
Or usury
Same thing kinda. Other people have to pay it back so they have to work for it
Right
You forgot the biggest one, the oil companies
freedom companies?
As well as the military contractors, insurance companies, big food, big media, big think tanks and consultancy, etc
Banks! You can always invest in banks!
Oil has been kinda shit though because of really low oil prices for a long time, evilness not withstanding.
Well, believe it or not, I’ve got news for you about that…
Transhumanity would be exciting if they had cool visions. I’d be all over raising a creche of draconic children.
But no, it’s just rich people gluing a Palm Pilot to their cerebrllum or doing a dance to shoo away the reaper.
The overall goals of mind-controlling a computer and not aging are quite ok.
They just can’t do anything good because of who they are. If those people set out to cure cancer, they will do that through a subscription service that require complete subservience.
I think they will give us the cancer cure which may even be cheap, but it will come with lots of other downsides for society and your individual physical and mental health. Technology is like black magic that solves the problem you asked it to but gives you a thousand new issues that end up being worse than the original situation.
People seriously think that’s what technology is?
We’ve seen it many times. TV, teflon, social media, cars, AI…
I wish they would invest in making safe delicious slushies out of (the sad goo that is left of) the past billionaires who froze themselves hoping for immortality. That’s a product that could take off.
billionaires who froze themselves hoping for immortality
Most Alcor members that the state considers deceased were never billionaires. Freezing appears to be better than chemical fixation for preserving the brain: https://www.brainpreservation.org/large-mammal-announcement/
Making Mortality Optional does seem like a good goal. You don’t have to want to live forever, just one more day.
Secundus- “It’s a company that provides low-interest loans and materials to Northrop, Boeing, Raytheon, and other arms producers during combat operations to increase assets and production”
Primus- “But we’re always at war… BRILLIANT sign me up. Hey, while you are here, I’d also like to buy some slaves.”
Secundus- “They’re on us! Pleasure doing business.”
What if we paint a rainbow on all of these parasites and call it an ESG fund?
ESG in shambles.
This is why I only invest in mutual funds, it’s guilt free!
Kinda how I see it, I just look at the numbers to make sure I can retire at some point and that’s it. Until a better system is available, I just have to play within the system that exists or I ruin my future while making no meaningful dent in these companies’ futures
Mutual Funds: We sell Bliss*
*manufactured from the finest ignorance
I don’t mind designer babies, personally. Hot people with fewer genetic disorders? Sounds alright to me. Though I’m worried our eugenic future might lead to diminishing gains in science.
With all due respect to scientists everywhere, the fact that people look the way that they do certainly pushes some away from special interests like sports and interpersonal skills and instead toward producing nanosheets under specific constraints.
It will be used to separate the wealthy from the poor even further. The wealthy people will afford it and make their families healthier and better looking.
I support the idea of eliminating genetic disabilities via gene editing, but the second you add in the option of picking eye or hair color, height, or skin color, you’re going down a path of eugenics that only works to put down those unable to pay for it.
That is an argument against capitalism, not eugenics.
Genetic engineering every little detail could become dirty cheap, but it will still be terrible for humanity because it will remove diversity, we’d be messing with forces we don’t understand that could lead to diseases or greater population-wide susceptibilities and the government would also like to have its say on how your baby is made so that they will be a good little order follower
I mean, until costs fall, sure. Unless you project human society to fall within 40 years, it will eventually reach common use in modern countries. Workers with fewer sick days are a government’s wet dream. Though I’m also worried about us becoming the next walnut tree, if we accidentally open a vulnerability.
I’m not going to weigh in on its use as a style decision. Hopefully a country with the ability to create a code of ethics takes the lead on the technology.
I think the knock-on effect of making some innate, human characteristics undesirable is probably a net bad. That’s very close to labeling persons with those characteristics as sub-human–specifically due fewer “human” rights.
That said, if I were choosing between gametes or embryos and had genetic information on them available, I do not think it is a moral stance to ignore/discard that information when making the choice. We should be careful to understand our genetic knowledge is still quite limited and, even if our knowledge was perfect, (most) genotypes are not destiny.
I dunno, man. You can have only so much of a sense of humor about child mortality. Up to a certain point, gene editing is all gravy.
I agree that gene editing to reduce suffering is good. I’m not sure “designer babies” is a label that includes those gene edits. Or, if it does, it groups the with too many other gene edits so the good ones are no longer exemplary of the label.
I always imagine it to be fairly gattaca-esque in its intended conclusion. Human work horses of terrifying intellect, stamina, and resilience to breach the barriers our forebears failed to surpass. Though that’s speculation and likely beyond my lifetime.
The name is mostly marketing. You don’t feel involved if it’s an “edited baby.” But designing it, that gets the people going. It’d be near impossible to sell “baby alpha .82 patch 1.” Fortunately for their sales department, an absence of ailments also tends to produce hotter people. Current trajectory, they intend to go after major genetic issues before considering looks. That’s the only effect I expect to see in my lifetime.
Crispr gene editing doesn’t work like a Santa Claus wishlist, dunce.
Damn, man. I didn’t realize that designer babies, a developing field with only a few present applications, had already been set in stone. Evidently you got the dr Manhattan gene, given your foreknowledge.
