Autonomous Truck Completes driverless run

[phantom000]

It's because it's more profitable in the short term and a faster turn around means the profits can be used for more investments sooner. If you can make 2.5 million in a year, but exhaust the resource or make 5 million in 10 years and have the resource still usable, most investors would choose the former.

This is why I think capitalism, in its purest form is inherently unstable, not evil just unstable. Greed can make people stop listening to their conscious, but it also makes them ignore common sense. That is where the boom-and-bust economy came from; people not learning from the past or telling themselves 'its won't happen.'

[Draco Dracul]

It's because it's more profitable in the short term and a faster turn around means the profits can be used for more investments sooner. If you can make 2.5 million in a year, but exhaust the resource or make 5 million in 10 years and have the resource still usable, most investors would choose the former.

This is why I think capitalism, in its purest form is inherently unstable, not evil just unstable. Greed can make people stop listening to their conscious, but it also makes them ignore common sense. That is where the boom-and-bust economy came from; people not learning from the past or telling themselves 'its won't happen.'

It's also unsustainable because it's dependent on not just steady income or even steady profits, but ever increasing profits. Eventually you will run out of costs to cut or new avenues of revenue.

[Riedquat]

It's because it's more profitable in the short term and a faster turn around means the profits can be used for more investments sooner. If you can make 2.5 million in a year, but exhaust the resource or make 5 million in 10 years and have the resource still usable, most investors would choose the former.

This is why I think capitalism, in its purest form is inherently unstable, not evil just unstable. Greed can make people stop listening to their conscious, but it also makes them ignore common sense. That is where the boom-and-bust economy came from; people not learning from the past or telling themselves 'its won't happen.'

It has its place, or more accurately had its place, when it got us out almost everyone just having to scrape by. But that's historical, those arguments for it are solving yesterday's problems. Today's problems are how do you tackle its downsides when you don't need its upsides, that it happens to fit in pretty well with human nature, that any alternative has got a worse track record, and that we still benefit from some of what it produces - it drives innovation too, and although I've got a dim view of a lot of the supposed upsides of that there certainly are upsides to it, we all surely want improved medicine for example.

[Riedquat]

The amount of litter in the streets is largely the result of poor public policy. We actually know how frequently trash cans should be placed to avoid litter, but most cities are well short of that distance in the street.

It's the result of lazy buggers who can't be bothered to carry that crisp packet or empty can in their pocket until they've got somewhere to put it and who couldn't care less about litter in the street that's not their's. There's never any need to leave litter (no bins if I go for a walk in the hills, and funnily enough, I don't just chuck my rubbish on to the ground), doing so says more about the person leaving it than anything else.

Disneyland belongs to a guest even less than any given city belongs to its inhabitants, but it has very little problem with litter. Do you know why that is? Because back in the fifties Walt Disney had people study how far people would be willing to go for a trash can and then made sure there wasn't a spot in the park where you were father than that from a trash can.

So? That's just them figuring out how to deal with the fact some people are disgusting scum who don't have a problem with chucking litter on to the ground. Doesn't change the fact the root of the problem is the scum who create it, rather than how well they're dealt with, and it doesn't mean that they don't have much of a problm dropping litter in the first place.

[Draco Dracul]

The amount of litter in the streets is largely the result of poor public policy. We actually know how frequently trash cans should be placed to avoid litter, but most cities are well short of that distance in the street.

It's the result of lazy buggers who can't be bothered to carry that crisp packet or empty can in their pocket until they've got somewhere to put it and who couldn't care less about litter in the street that's not their's. There's never any need to leave litter (no bins if I go for a walk in the hills, and funnily enough, I don't just chuck my rubbish on to the ground), doing so says more about the person leaving it than anything else.

Disneyland belongs to a guest even less than any given city belongs to its inhabitants, but it has very little problem with litter. Do you know why that is? Because back in the fifties Walt Disney had people study how far people would be willing to go for a trash can and then made sure there wasn't a spot in the park where you were father than that from a trash can.

So? That's just them figuring out how to deal with the fact some people are disgusting scum who don't have a problem with chucking litter on to the ground. Doesn't change the fact the root of the problem is the scum who create it, rather than how well they're dealt with, and it doesn't mean that they don't have much of a problm dropping litter in the first place.

A) I think if there is a know solution to a problem the government bares responsiblity if they do not implement it.

B) This kind of litter problem is essentially very new as not only has humanity historically lived in a rural environment, but non-biodegradible waste at in kind of scale has only been around for ~100 years or so.

[Draco Dracul]

It's because it's more profitable in the short term and a faster turn around means the profits can be used for more investments sooner. If you can make 2.5 million in a year, but exhaust the resource or make 5 million in 10 years and have the resource still usable, most investors would choose the former.

This is why I think capitalism, in its purest form is inherently unstable, not evil just unstable. Greed can make people stop listening to their conscious, but it also makes them ignore common sense. That is where the boom-and-bust economy came from; people not learning from the past or telling themselves 'its won't happen.'

It has its place, or more accurately had its place, when it got us out almost everyone just having to scrape by.

You're confusing capitalism and industrialization. Capitalism is in fact why most people still have to just scrape by because it makes it so the gains of industrialization go to only a scant handful of people.

But that's historical, those arguments for it are solving yesterday's problems. Today's problems are how do you tackle its downsides when you don't need its upsides, that it happens to fit in pretty well with human nature, that any alternative has got a worse track record, and that we still benefit from some of what it produces - it drives innovation too, and although I've got a dim view of a lot of the supposed upsides of that there certainly are upsides to it, we all surely want improved medicine for example.

Medicine is actually a good example of where capitalism stifles rather than drives innovation. For instance there was proposals into making Corona virus vaccines years ago that were shelved because it was deemed not profitable.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Prevention of tragedy of the commons isn't a "proto-capitalist" effort by any means. I mean really it's inherently post-capitalist given that it's a public measure that circumvents market failure, no differently than roads/utilities.

[Draco Dracul]

Prevention of tragedy of the commons isn't a "proto-capitalist" effort by any means. I mean really it's inherently post-capitalist given that it's a public measure that circumvents market failure, no differently than roads/utilities.

In this instance I'm talking about the origin of the phrase where in it was used to fense off and sell most of the common land (land held for public access and use) to private hands.

[Riedquat]

It has its place, or more accurately had its place, when it got us out almost everyone just having to scrape by.

You're confusing capitalism and industrialization. Capitalism is in fact why most people still have to just scrape by because it makes it so the gains of industrialization go to only a scant handful of people.

They are intrinsically linked. Capitalism was the driving force behind industrialisation, the means by which enough capital could be raised to make it happen, and by which more wealth was generated to furthe industrialisation.

But that's historical, those arguments for it are solving yesterday's problems. Today's problems are how do you tackle its downsides when you don't need its upsides, that it happens to fit in pretty well with human nature, that any alternative has got a worse track record, and that we still benefit from some of what it produces - it drives innovation too, and although I've got a dim view of a lot of the supposed upsides of that there certainly are upsides to it, we all surely want improved medicine for example.

Medicine is actually a good example of where capitalism stifles rather than drives innovation. For instance there was proposals into making Corona virus vaccines years ago that were shelved because it was deemed not profitable.

And how many other developments has it "stifled" because they looked like they wouldn't pay off, because there probably wouldn't be any real use for them? How do you avoid wasting resources developing medicines that won't do many people much good? Sometimes you'll get it wrong - no system is perfect, no system has a crystal ball, but that's not a good argument against capitalism.

We do, however, need to avoid going to extremes - yet again. 100% commercially-driven interests alone - not good. The increasing commercialisation of academia concerns me.

[Riedquat]

A) I think if there is a know solution to a problem the government bares responsiblity if they do not implement it.

Only in a secondary sense. If you're attacked then it's the attacker's fault, "there weren't enough police to stop me" wouldn't be any sort of defence.