Intro

There are two important questions a person should ask themselves when trying to solve a recurrent problem:

1. What's causing the problem in the first place?

2. With the cause in mind, what's a reliable solution for the problem?

I propose that our current economic system is the cause of our major social problems and that our current political systems do not address this cause and are therefore not reliable to solve major social problems.

The current economic system polluted all over the world and throughout the past 10,000 years is systemized trade. Currently systemized trade has evolved into abstract forms where people no longer trade commodities directly, rather we use money which is used to represent the buying power of the commodities we used to trade directly. There is little to no archaeological evidence for systemic discrimination in any human society prior to the advent of systemized trade in the fertile crescent. It's also worth pointing out that evidence suggests humans experienced astronomically greater leisure time prior to the neolithic revolution.

Systemized trade has benefits (e.g. division of labor, effective hierarchy and productivity) but it also has many devastating costs (e.g. systemic discrimination, poverty, 50+ hour work weeks, cut throat competition, etc...). Is it not possible for us to come up with a system that retains the benefits of trade while rejecting its devastating costs? Capitalism, socialism, communism, feudalism, barter system etc... are all predicated on systems of trade and only disagree with each other about how it should be governed or managed or regulated. From this point of view communism and capitalism are much more so similar than they are different. This isn't to say that different political systems don't differ in their social consequences but this is to say that they're all fundamentaly similar. Systemized trade is at this point a 10,000 year old idea. Since its advent we have landed man on moon, undertaken quantum computation and theorized alternate universes. Considering accomplishments and undertakings such as these, it seems as though it is more than reasonably within our capabilities to develop a system other than systemized trade which retains its benefits while rejecting its devastating costs.

But before that can happen people must focus on and prioritize the recurrent consequences of this system directly rather than particular instances of these recurrent consequences. For example, instead of asking why Bush would lie about WMDs to wage war, we should ask why we have a system that would reward such a lie; instead of asking why Obama would supply weapons and money to an Egyptian regime condemned for the murder and torture of children, we should ask why we have a system that would reward such a move; instead of asking why terrorism is a threat, we should ask why we have a system that accords power to those who are most violent and dominant; instead of asking why Elon is so greedy, we should ask why we have a system that would allow someone to hoard excessive swaths of resources to themselves while others suffer and even starve due to a deprivation of resources; instead of asking why mainstream media and even our own institutions lie to us, we should ask why we even have a system that would reward such lies. Ask ourselves: If an economy is the system that my society uses to distribute resources that I, my family, friends and community need to survive then isn't it important to have an economic system that isn't vulnerable to greed, dominance, corruption and manipulation? Ask ourselves: If an economy is the system that we use to distribute resources which everyone needs to survive then is it my duty to spread awareness to others that we shouldn't use an economy that's vulnerable to these things then?

I'll divide this into two brief parts and be done with it. The first part is about our economy while the second is about our government. BTW when I say "resource" I'm referring to any commodity (including services, goods, and money) with a reasonable magnitude of supply and demand; and when I say "trade" I'm referring to any action of "I'll scratch your back but only if you scratch mine in return." So that would mean "I'll give you 40 hours of my time and effort but only if you give me a pay check in return" Ditto! Money is simply monetized trade value. Let's look at more examples of trade:

"If I pay you in bribes, then you pass legislation that benefits my interests but not the public's"

"If I pay your taxes, then you don't throw me in jail"

"If I pay a monthly premium, then you give me a place to live"

Anyways, back to it then. As we move forward, let's keep in mind the two important questions anyone should ask themselves when trying to solve a recurrent problem. 

Part 1: Systemized trade, gross

Systems of trade are systems of "I'll scratch your back but only if you scratch mine in return."

There are 6 primary recurrent consequences of using a system of trade to distribute resources.The 3 primary logical consequences are:

1. It necessitates consumption.

2. It incentives waste.

3. It's vulnerable to greed and dominance.

The 3 primary moral consequences are:

4. People are forced to systemically treat each other like tools for profit.

5. It does not acknowledge that human life is entitled to the resources required for living a quality life regardless of what a person is able to trade. 

6. It reduces the meaning of contributing to society to the mere acquisition of resources/money. 

An economy  treats everything like a resource, including human life, time and energy. This also includes food, water and shelter. The economy decides how these resources will be managed and distributed. So isn't it in our best interest to use an economy that doesn't have these consequences?Looking at the first 3 logical consequences gives you the source of the 40 hour + work week. Nothing is about efficiency and everything is about how to profit off trade. Why would apple design their products to last forever when there's far more profit in releasing a new phone every year? Speaking of apple, do you guys remember when they tried to sue a company for offering repairs on apple iPhones? Also why would any car manufacturer design their cars to last forever when there is far more profit in people buying many cars? Why design a computer to last forever? What a about a remote or bed frame or broom or light bulb or any product? Why design anything to last when there is far more profit in designing things to fail prematurely? It's far more profitable for a person to go through 30 phones, 20 cars, countless clothes etc.. than do anything efficiently. IDK about you, but I'm beginning to think all of the work going into the 30 phones and 20 cars is just waste and consumption.

Simply, there is little incentive for our economy to be efficient on a collaborative level, as trade favors competition over collaboration. This is not a hypothesis of mine. This phenomenon is termed "planned obsolence" for the intent of designing products to fail prematurely and "intrinsic obsolescence" for when a manufacturer literally cannot use a more durable material in their products if it is costly because they have to stay in competition with those offering cheaper prices. Anyone unfamiliar with this should watch "the lightbulb conspiracy" which is a documentary that covers small scale incidents of such phenomenon; don't mistake that these phenomenon aren't happening on a scale that most wouldn't dare to imagine. And there you have it, an entire economic system built on consumption, waste and trade.

I'm just going to ramble off some more things really quick, but that was the main part I wanted to say. I think the following is equally as important.

In a system of trade special interests are likely to arise. Special interests are defined as those only interested in "back scratches" and not interested in trade or providing any social value. Therefore, if a system of trade is used to distribute resources that entire populations need to survive then the following are likely to occur:

1. The different categories of groups (e.g. national, religious, racial, business) in the same field of trade will be pinned against each other in competition for the consumption of their resources in order to acquire other resources. This is necessarily the case, competition is unavoidable if everyone must trade some resource in order to acquire other resources; this because any resource is finite in supply and demand at any given point in time (e.g. there are only so many apples at any given point in time, only so much usable oil, only so much clean water in a given area, only so much food, only so much wood, only so many surgeons, only so many electricians, only so many lawyers, only so many people that have a demand for a particular commodity, and only so much time). The more oppressive special interests are in the trade of a resource (including services and goods) or the lower demand is for a resource which has a high supply of people who trade that resource then the more fierce competition will be in that field of trade. As will be discussed later, we will find that resources (including services and goods) which are high in demand but low in supply will be the most lucrative, and that it is the vehicle of supply and demand which decides who will live in a mansion and who will starve to death.

The severity and consequences of competition will vary between each category and context of the group. Competition is always skewed in favor of groups that most closely mirror the elite of their political atmosphere; in the US, for example, the politically elite group falls into the categories of white, Christian, rich men. This phenomenon arises through the combination of the hiring process and human congeniality (the propensity for one to associate with those who more closely share one's own attributes); this is a primitive instinct observed in many species, especially when there's a scarcity of resources, systemic trade being a scaricity based point of view of resources; in short, systemized trade betrays and exploits one of the most basic and detrimental elements of human nature. This phenomenon is bad enough left alone and yet it is often exacerbated with government intervention (e.g. legislation around segregation, slavery, prisons for profit) as would be expected from an institution whose sole purpose is to uphold the wishes of the elite. (cite studies on how black women are more likely to hire black women, white men to white men, Asian to Asian, Christian toChristian, english to english, etc...).

2. Exploitation arises in the form of "If I make two back scratches for providing a good/service then I can just pay someone else one back scratch to provide the good/service and thus profit 1 back scratch by doing nothing."

3. People with executive power in groups that profit massive amounts of resources/money/back scratches and an addiction to obtaining resources/money/back scratches tend to hoard resources to themselves or their group at the cost of the livelihood/detriment of those outside of their group. As stated before, any particular resource is finite in supply and demand at any point in time.  

4. Because there has to be consumption of a trade in order for the groups of the trade to sustain themselves, manufacturers will tend to make their products less durable so that the consumer has to buy the product more often. In extreme cases manufacturers will even harm those that repair the manufacturer's products rather than buy a new product (apple lawsuit mentioned above). This means that the economy will prosper the more wasteful it is; this means that the major means of production is likely to integrate wasteful practices; and that many of the big groups in a particular trade are sustained by wasteful practices. This phenomenon has been categorized into two categories: intrinsic and planned obsolescence. Though I'm not sure if these two categories alone capture the entirety of the situation.

Part 2: Government, gross

The political spectrum solely presupposes a balance between government and economy for regulatory power. This is like saying there should be a sole balance between one species and it's ecosystem for the regulation of that ecosystem, which is ludicrous because an ecosystem is regulated by a balance of all of its constituents, not just one of its species.

If you need the force and authority of a military to enforce an economy, prevent it from failing and regulate it, then you have a drastically adverse economy.

A government, much like all other institutions, is predicated on its economy; therefore it's members' economic interests (in our case we could call this "financial interests" as well) are with their respective economy. This is necessarily true for all members even if the members of the government wish to change the economy, which makes it very unlikely that a majority of its members or even a significant fraction would ever want to change the economy. This also makes it very unlikely for most organizations to want to change the economy, besides organizations formed for the very reason of changing the economy and other anomalous organizations. Everyone's economic interests (or in our case, "financial interests") everywhere is implicitly tied to the economy they're predicated on, making it very difficult for people to recognize that they have an adverse economy if they do have an adverse economy.

Strictly granting one institution, or a select few, the authority to regulate the economy circumvents checks and balances of regulation because there would be no impartial institution with the authority to ensure that the regulatory power isn't abused or corrupted. You can argue that an institution, or a select few, granted the authority to regulate an economy can create its own system of checks and balances, but that would only apply within the institution and not to everyone else which opens the door to external manipulation, as is evident with the extent of lobbying in the US government for example; such an argument also ignores the ludicrous history of jurisprudence (the history of the 16th amendment is something else).

A government official's competence to solve problems, especially societal problems, external to their profession is dwarfed by the respective professional's competence but since the power is with the masses and the majority of the masses in mainstream economies have been stuck in this box of weighing government and economy, the professionals are forced to mediate their solutions through government officials which is often misinterpreted, distorted or dismissed due to the lack of competence or conflict of interest of government officials.

If people keep their head in this box then the problem will only repeat itself as mainstream economies rise and fall. This is the catch 22 that I feel has been causing history to repeat itself.

Conclusion

I am so relieved to see this community exists. I hope to God this community never becomes political and just focuses on how fucked up the system is. I hope it stays true. I really believe this community is the best shot humanity has at spreading awareness to the fact that trade only acknowledges human life as a tool for profit. Tread carefully friends. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. At the same time we must acknowledge the paradox that neither politicians, businessmen, journalists, scientists, artists nor any particular group of people can save us. Only we can save us. And we can't save us until we are all on the same page. So it is absolutely imperative that you never blame any social problem on a particular group of people as this just bolsters social division. Instead hold them accountable while placing the blame on the social system for being vulnerable to such social problems.

Hi everyone.

So I saw a video a while back that demonstrated the effects of rich iron sources on the growth of the Algae Spirulina, in which the iron led to hastened growth and increased culture density. So, I wondered whether the same principle held true for Chlorella (Spoiler: It did!)

If you want to see more about this, follow the link below for the experiment and more in-depth insight.

https://youtu.be/SKDkRBkShEQ

Greetings everyone/Solarpunks

Despite being simple and making use of abundant materials, sand batteries are paradoxically an emerging tech, that's only just started being utilised at some scale.

Through the link below, I explain sand batteries in more detail, and try to build a small one myself, as it's an area I want to explore further in my research.

https://youtu.be/sxXOTPpoMX4

I think the tech has great potential as a low tech, scalable, sustainable form of energy storage.

Hi All.

So about a week ago I made a post showing off my new Algae Culture, and all the steps I took to get things up and running.

This time, I'm explaining the main goal with this, which is to create an Algae to biofuel process, in order to produce what's called (due to being deriveed from algae, and having similar properties to regular fuels) "Third Generation Biofuels".

Through the link below, I discuss the cultivation of Chlorella Algae, harvesting and extraction, processing, and more.

Algae to fuel is generally quite an inefficient process, to say the least, at present, but I think with a bit of R&D, this could be improved significantly.

Anyway, if you're interested in finding out more, here is the link!

https://youtu.be/Q6AMae-qJm4