Jun 22 2011: Step 1: do not debate with people who spend too much time over semantics, unless you feel that the extra time and lower utility of the debate for anyone else who reads it is worthwhile to you.
Aaaand just because, see http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9 line 59. People worry over semantics because they feel other people care, because they do even if it is irrelevant to the facts of an argument. An obsession over surface details is part of the environment in which people are forced to operate, but one's environment can be modified to cause further goal completion beyond the scope of any single argument.
Jun 22 2011: "Is it a fact that the more restrictions we place upon society as the measure of enforcing appropriate and accepted behaviors, we are actually creating a society dependent upon those very restrictions to provide their guidelines for living? Shouldn't we be re-educating society on how common courtesy and care for your 'fellow man' provides those same guidelines?"
Any such phenomenon is most likely due to the perception of conflict within society, and the resulting stress. If someone is seen as being on the opposite side of an ideological divide it is less likely they will be helped.
One of the most immediate of these conflicts currently, is the disparity in thought over whether society should be encouraging people to "earn as much money as possible" or whether it should be encouraging people to "only earn as much as you need to survive and be comfortable, and sell goods and services at a level where other people can benefit from the excess value that you do not need". This manifests as the anomalously high unemployment rate in seemingly 'advanced' countries like the United States, and can be fixed by introducing an additional progress metric that conflicts with total income earned: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
Jun 22 2011: A misunderstanding of common indicators of ability and intention is central to the pattern of mistakes exhibited at both the individual level and at the level of society.
Using one possible description of how concepts are evaluated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaboration_likelihood_model), using "common sense" could mean thinking about things superficially (which can cause an error), but it could also mean thinking about something critically but failing to do so at a level which correctly identifies flaws in an argument due to assumptions used in the analytical process. This would then create a false sense of confidence which might be perceived as others as a "lack of common sense" due to a greater familiarity with identifying hidden assumptions.
In any case see this, just because: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9 line 59.
Jun 22 2011: "I often hear people say that the generation after them are not as smart as they were growing up. By people I mean the adults like my parents and grandparents. What is your input on the issues with education? Do you believe the education system is falling apart?"
Education will teach whatever material is being offered at a predictable rate, but does not teach evaluation of issues where there is no clear right answer. One of the most important of these is how to compromise where different parties seem to have fundamentally different goals in a given situation. This situation will inevitably arise due to the variation in performance among the population, and the need for standards of measurement that quantify performance in a given situation, which will vary in the scale of abilities measured due to the above-mentioned differences in competence between different human beings in any given task.
In the sense of not knowing how to resolve these contradictions, people in the current education system are definitely getting "less intelligent" in the sense that they are less likely to be able to maintain a society with efficient characteristics, measured by goal completion. This can be fixed, as described starting on line 59 here: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
Jun 21 2011: "Why do we throw away perfectly good food and goods, and how can we share what we have with those that don't?"
Well of course, the distribution of products was one of Karl Marx's criticisms of the then-current understanding of the requirements and goals of capitalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_product#Criticism (last part of the section, starting from The Wealth of Nations)
First part of Wikipedia's summary of Marx's critique: "From the fact that a division of labour existed between producers, no particular method of distributing different products among producers necessarily followed. In principle, given a division of labour, products could be distributed in all kinds of ways - market trade being only one way - and how it was done just depended on how claims to property happened to be organised and enforced using the available technologies."
In any case, the solution is to popularize a goal that conflicts with total income, which will allow more people to state that the reason they do not purchase goods is that they had no interest in doing the additional work which would allow the purchase of those products, and not because there was no way for them to earn that additional money: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
Jun 21 2011: It is a problem because people don't like the government to just give money away for free to whoever needs it as it would encourage people not to work, so the government must hire people to do relatively nonproductive tasks.
The government needs to do this because inequality leads to unemployment, and employed people feel bad when unemployed people starve on the streets. Inequality leading to unemployment is not a fundamental condition or result of inequality, but rather is the result of assumptions which predispose people to make economic choices which lead to a rise in unemployment:
http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
In that sense there is no logical argument that inequality is a problem, only strong and consistent observational evidence.
Jun 21 2011: The problem with socialism as traditionally practiced is that allocation of resources and planning decisions are made by people with insufficient information about the economic deficiencies those decisions are meant to address. The people doing work, therefore, lose the awareness of how important it is that their tasks be completed or done well.
The problem with capitalism is the misunderstanding about how individual choices impact the overall economic health of the society, causing systemic distortions in the provision and distribution of resources.
The flaws in both systems historically prevented either from becoming dominant, which is why (for example) capitalist countries tax the rich (or just maintain a budget deficit) in order to support the poor and those without jobs.
Since the cultural assumptions of capitalism are what lead to its problems, changing these assumptions would allow a more efficient society, which will especially become more important as the cost of energy increases from the depletion of natural resources. One possible end state for society which would address the incorrect assumptions that cause problems: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
Jun 21 2011: "How can creativity be encouraged as a regular and reliable part of everyday life? If you are running a company or an organisation or a school, how do you make creativity systematic and routine? How do you lead a culture of innovation?"
By encouraging people to be more critical of the standards of measurement they are presented with, instead of taking everything at face value. This is most efficiently done through a conflict of goals which decreases the ability for progress to be communicated within the system.
This increases the demand for effective ideas and decreases the demand for superficial creativity that involves ineffective solutions. Within any organization, "creative" solutions will only spread and be adopted if the members of the organization have both the willingness and ability to recognize innovative solutions. The ability to do so is dependent on the awareness of the potential failures of a given system; the willingness to do so, in contrast, is based upon the goals of the organization in relation to entities both within and outside of the organization. When the goals of the organization are in conflict with other entities, the willingness to create or adopt innovative solutions will naturally decrease.
Accordingly, both parts of the following text are relevant to this question: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9. The first part to the willingness to support economic progress which is one of the most common goals of an organization, the second to the ability to recognize ways to support those goals.
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A comment on Conversation: Prerequisites for a debate
Aaaand just because, see http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9 line 59. People worry over semantics because they feel other people care, because they do even if it is irrelevant to the facts of an argument. An obsession over surface details is part of the environment in which people are forced to operate, but one's environment can be modified to cause further goal completion beyond the scope of any single argument.
A comment on Conversation: Restrictions to control behaviors: When is enough . . . enough?
Any such phenomenon is most likely due to the perception of conflict within society, and the resulting stress. If someone is seen as being on the opposite side of an ideological divide it is less likely they will be helped.
One of the most immediate of these conflicts currently, is the disparity in thought over whether society should be encouraging people to "earn as much money as possible" or whether it should be encouraging people to "only earn as much as you need to survive and be comfortable, and sell goods and services at a level where other people can benefit from the excess value that you do not need". This manifests as the anomalously high unemployment rate in seemingly 'advanced' countries like the United States, and can be fixed by introducing an additional progress metric that conflicts with total income earned: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
A comment on Conversation: Is common sense an over rated concept or is it under rated?
Using one possible description of how concepts are evaluated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaboration_likelihood_model), using "common sense" could mean thinking about things superficially (which can cause an error), but it could also mean thinking about something critically but failing to do so at a level which correctly identifies flaws in an argument due to assumptions used in the analytical process. This would then create a false sense of confidence which might be perceived as others as a "lack of common sense" due to a greater familiarity with identifying hidden assumptions.
In any case see this, just because: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9 line 59.
A comment on Conversation: Is the generation in education getting less intelligent than the ones before them or smarter?
Education will teach whatever material is being offered at a predictable rate, but does not teach evaluation of issues where there is no clear right answer. One of the most important of these is how to compromise where different parties seem to have fundamentally different goals in a given situation. This situation will inevitably arise due to the variation in performance among the population, and the need for standards of measurement that quantify performance in a given situation, which will vary in the scale of abilities measured due to the above-mentioned differences in competence between different human beings in any given task.
In the sense of not knowing how to resolve these contradictions, people in the current education system are definitely getting "less intelligent" in the sense that they are less likely to be able to maintain a society with efficient characteristics, measured by goal completion. This can be fixed, as described starting on line 59 here: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
A comment on Conversation: Why do we throw away perfectly good food and goods, and how can we share what we have with those that don't?
Well of course, the distribution of products was one of Karl Marx's criticisms of the then-current understanding of the requirements and goals of capitalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_product#Criticism (last part of the section, starting from The Wealth of Nations)
First part of Wikipedia's summary of Marx's critique: "From the fact that a division of labour existed between producers, no particular method of distributing different products among producers necessarily followed. In principle, given a division of labour, products could be distributed in all kinds of ways - market trade being only one way - and how it was done just depended on how claims to property happened to be organised and enforced using the available technologies."
In any case, the solution is to popularize a goal that conflicts with total income, which will allow more people to state that the reason they do not purchase goods is that they had no interest in doing the additional work which would allow the purchase of those products, and not because there was no way for them to earn that additional money: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
A reply on Conversation: Can we just take the best of socialism and capitalism?
The government needs to do this because inequality leads to unemployment, and employed people feel bad when unemployed people starve on the streets. Inequality leading to unemployment is not a fundamental condition or result of inequality, but rather is the result of assumptions which predispose people to make economic choices which lead to a rise in unemployment:
http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
In that sense there is no logical argument that inequality is a problem, only strong and consistent observational evidence.
A comment on Conversation: Can we just take the best of socialism and capitalism?
The problem with capitalism is the misunderstanding about how individual choices impact the overall economic health of the society, causing systemic distortions in the provision and distribution of resources.
The flaws in both systems historically prevented either from becoming dominant, which is why (for example) capitalist countries tax the rich (or just maintain a budget deficit) in order to support the poor and those without jobs.
Since the cultural assumptions of capitalism are what lead to its problems, changing these assumptions would allow a more efficient society, which will especially become more important as the cost of energy increases from the depletion of natural resources. One possible end state for society which would address the incorrect assumptions that cause problems: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9
A comment on Conversation: How do you foster a culture of creativity and innovation?
By encouraging people to be more critical of the standards of measurement they are presented with, instead of taking everything at face value. This is most efficiently done through a conflict of goals which decreases the ability for progress to be communicated within the system.
This increases the demand for effective ideas and decreases the demand for superficial creativity that involves ineffective solutions. Within any organization, "creative" solutions will only spread and be adopted if the members of the organization have both the willingness and ability to recognize innovative solutions. The ability to do so is dependent on the awareness of the potential failures of a given system; the willingness to do so, in contrast, is based upon the goals of the organization in relation to entities both within and outside of the organization. When the goals of the organization are in conflict with other entities, the willingness to create or adopt innovative solutions will naturally decrease.
Accordingly, both parts of the following text are relevant to this question: http://pastebin.com/Q86Zhgs9. The first part to the willingness to support economic progress which is one of the most common goals of an organization, the second to the ability to recognize ways to support those goals.