 
To: +dist+/afs/andrew/usr/js9b/Public/camc.dl@ANDREW.CMU.EDU
Subject: Re: yeah 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Oct 92 16:13:54 EDT."
              
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 92 16:20:52 -0400
Message-Id: <6352.718489252@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Thomas_Price@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU

Here are two posts from a local cmu bulletin board. The quoted fellow is
Dave Touretzky, a noted connectionist researcher and very articulate and 
intelligent free-market republican.

Subject: Re: "commensurate with our needs"
Newsgroups: cmu.cs.discussion
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 15:11:21 EDT

>I'm not sure it will ever be possible to have all one's needs met with
>just a few hours of work per week.  The reason is that our notion of
>"needs" keeps advancing.  
>
>A poverty-stricken welfare case today actually lives far better than
>European royalty a few centuries ago.  Inoor plumbing with Flush toilets, a
>wide variety of fresh produce available year round at cheap prices, aspirin,
>antibiotics, ...
>
>Today, even poor people own televisions.  If you're middle class and your
>employer-provided health insurance doesn't cover heart transplants, you feel
>like you're being ripped off.  Heart transplants!!!
>
>There are always more goods and services being invented that people just
>"have to have".  Economics dictate that price rises until demand is curbed.
>So as long as people are able to put in 35-40 hours of work per week, there
>will be goods available at prices that require this level of work.  (And
>there will be a few people who opt to work less and forego those goods.)
>
>When computers and medicines and food are all cheap, what sorts of goodies
>will people "have to have"?  Use your imagination:  personal services will
>be a big item.  Everybody will get body modification surgery (especially as
>risks and pain levels are reduced); everyone will get psychological
>counseling of one sort or another throughout life; everyone will want to
>travel to remote places and do exciting things (play golf on the moon) on a
>regular basis.
>
>If *all* you want is food in your belly and a roof over your head, you can
>have that right now without working.  Just sell all your possessions, stick
>the money in an interest-bearing savings account, and move to some third
>world country where you can use your interest checks to purchase all the
>food, shelter, and fourth-rate medical care you want.

Subject: Re: "commensurate with our needs"
Newsgroups: cmu.cs.discussion
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 16:14:22 EDT

In article  dst+@DST.BOLTZ.CS.CMU.EDU (Dave Touretzky) writes:
>I'm not sure it will ever be possible to have all one's needs met with
>just a few hours of work per week.  The reason is that our notion of
>"needs" keeps advancing.  
>
>A poverty-stricken welfare case today actually lives far better than
>European royalty a few centuries ago.  Inoor plumbing with Flush toilets, a
>wide variety of fresh produce available year round at cheap prices, aspirin,
>antibiotics, ...

Dave, this is a fascinating problem, because you are exactly right from
a material standpoint. However, from an emotional / quality-of-human-spirit
standpoint, you're dead wrong. Poverty-stricken welfare cases are, somehow,
robbed of dignity and spirit, whereas the European royalty had tremendous
inner lives (or else wasted them; the point is, they were readily available and
the royals' surroundings were crawling with good examples). What is the 
relationship between material circumstances and inner life, and how would it 
be possible to recreate the equivalent of the mental luxury of the old 
royalty? These are questions which fascinate me, and which I understand dimly.

The only useful monograph on the topic that I know of is Henry David Thoreau's
_Walden_; unfortunately, he only managed to do successful research for the
individual case. For the community case, I don't know of any successes.

>If *all* you want is food in your belly and a roof over your head, you can
>have that right now without working.  Just sell all your possessions, stick
>the money in an interest-bearing savings account, and move to some third
>world country where you can use your interest checks to purchase all the
>food, shelter, and fourth-rate medical care you want.

If I can somehow add an intellectual community and resources to the food,
shelter, and fourth-rate medical care, I will. 

Currently planning that addition,

Tom

******************************************************************************
           Tom Price  |  tp0x@cs.cmu.edu  |  Simplicity, simplicity
******************************************************************************
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