Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Switchboard >

What are the big problems facing humanity. With an invitation to start/continue solution threads if anyones got any bright ideas.

20:52 / 17.04.06

There seems to be spring cleaning going on about the place.
A lot of challenging debate is going on about the kind of board people want to use.

In the spirit of 'what kind of world do you want to live in?', what are the things that humanity needs to stop doing.

In no particular order I nominate:-

Placing people's lives in a league table of value based on geography, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, religeon, wealth.....

Not tiding up after themselves. Being able to buy Kenyan mange tout, when you live in Toxteth.

Letting money acrue interest. Giving Human Rights to corporations. Intellectual property rights.

01:58 / 18.04.06

Placing people's lives in a league table of value based on geography, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, religeon, wealth.....

so are you suggesting absolute hegemony? Completely ignoring people's differences? Differences are what make society interesting, and people differences ought to be celebrated, not glossed over.

Not tiding up after themselves. Being able to buy Kenyan mange tout, when you live in Toxteth.

Call me stupid, but I have no idea at all what this means. None.

Letting money acrue interest. Giving Human Rights to corporations. Intellectual property rights.

Ok, I have a huge problem with propisition number one. not letting money acrue interest is the same thing as prohibiting profit. So buying a shop and manufacturing goods to pay back your investment and make more would be out. What ever happened to protestant work ethic? The only other time when profit was forbidden in our society was during the dark ages. THE DARK FUCKING AGES! Are you suggesting that we revert so subsistence farming?? There isn't enough land or natural rescources for that. I suggest you think a bit before suggesting something so hairbrained next time.

03:24 / 18.04.06

so are you suggesting absolute hegemony? Completely ignoring people's differences? Differences are what make society interesting, and people differences ought to be celebrated, not glossed over.

I don't believe that's what redtara is saying at all. Look at the cases of the Balkans and Rwanda. When massacres occurred in the Balkans, Europe and the United States came running. When genocide occurred in Rwanda, no one lifted a finger. 800,000 Rwandans died because they weren't lucky enough to be born in Europe.

03:47 / 18.04.06

I don't believe that's what redtara is saying at all. Look at the cases of the Balkans and Rwanda. When massacres occurred in the Balkans, Europe and the United States came running. When genocide occurred in Rwanda, no one lifted a finger. 800,000 Rwandans died because they weren't lucky enough to be born in Europe.

I'd hardly say we came running -- there was an enormous ammount of killing in the Balkans before we decided to 'solve' their problems by bombing the shit out of them. But point taken, race does play a role in international politics.

09:15 / 18.04.06

I agree with redtara's request that we ought to stop placing people's lives in a league table of value based on geography, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, religeon, wealth....., but I don't see us doing it.

I'm not sure what redtara means by [not] letting money acrue interest but I think the fractional-reserve banking system, in which money is created as loans from private banks backed only by the future economic performance of the country, is out of control and has become nothing more than a pyramid scheme. This system is meant to be regulated by the government, using liquidity and reserve/asset ratios, but such regulation has been ineffective for many years now. While I've nothing whatever against money being lent at interest, it's being created at interest opens the system to economic monstrosities like third-world debt and demands economic growth irrespective of the real potential for or benefit of such growth.

Being able to buy Kenyan mange tout, when you live in Toxteth. I think global resource depletion will soon put an end to this, but Kenyans will still starve under the current or similar economic and political systems.

Giving Human Rights to corporations. Oh no, we don't, do we?

Intellectual property rights. I'm not essentially opposed to these, but they should have a very short lifespan. Ever idea ought to become part of the public domain within, say, five years of its being published.

13:49 / 18.04.06

1. stop the gross disparity of economic classes. stop paying the big bucks to the people who dont really do anything. in fact, stop paying the big bucks to anyone.

2. stop cultural interventions. stop forcing any way of thought or action on any other group of people. that means no more fucking suicide bombers and also no more global macdonalds. imagine if it was as hard to build a walmart in china as it is to build one in a highly motivated middle america township.

3. stop testing our children and start teaching them. pay teachers the big bucks. i realize this runs counter to #1, but my cynicism prevents me from believing that any of this could ever happen, so i might as well be reckless.

Henningjohnathan

22:02 / 27.04.06

Environmental damage from polution has to be on the top of anyone's list- Place more value on conservative, clean and sustainable industrial processes.

The current state of the corporate mentality - the focus on "growth" and stock market return in business management has led to some extremely damaging financial crises like Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Tyco and so on. We need more emphasis simply on good businesspractices rather than unreasonable expections on return that lead to the massive lay-offs and neverending mergers as companies buy short-term profits to keep up with investors' expectations. The economy needs to work for the culture, not the other way around.