Be Excellent To Each Other

Fine sentiment, but the real world does not work like that. (Just ask the French, who've been living beyond their means for years and whose hens are coming home to roost).

Are we to expect the billion-plus Chinese to keep slogging away for 70hrs+ per week, just so that we, on our increasingly insignificant island, with ever less to offer, an ageing and increasingly poorly educated population etc., can take ever more time off etc. and call it 'progress'? Or as even one quarter of the world literally starves whilst we do so, in this increasingly globalised world?

Your whole argument works on the entirely false premise that (a) 'Mankind' acts globally (and non selfishly at that), as one, homogenised population, and/or (b) We, in the UK, are in any sense masters of our own economic destiny. It doesn't, and we're not, so we might as well roll up our sleeves and deal with reality, however non-ideal that undoubtedly is.

That, there, is basically what I've been saying here for the last 10 years. Real politik, not idealistic pipe dreams. To believe otherwise is to totally misunderstand what human beings are, and what they're like.

I cannot accept that there isn't scope within those parameters for not treating people like so much shit. Business cannot be relied upon to do anything other than maximise profit, deviously exploiting people and legislation to that end. There have to be standards that are adhered to and the needs of ordinary people have to be represented.

Surely, in 2014, that is what Employment Law is for Mark? I've done loads of manual, low paid, shitty jobs but I've never been on strike or in a union, and I don't know anyone who has.

I'm utterly convinced in the inevitably of our doom and destruction. It's coming, because we're blind to the real realities, and I mean REAL realities. Not an alleged disparity of pay conditions, or gender inequality, or the fact that David Cameron's PR team tweeted a fucking picture of him on the phone. Things that will destroy our race because nobody in real power will make the tough decisions to avert the coming disaster. People act selfishly, with no unity. We'll fuck people over as long as we're OK. Screw the future because we won't be in it, and who cares anyway?

When the fossil fuels run out, it will happen very quickly. We are simply not putting in place a sufficient number of alternatives, and they're expensive. When that goes into death throes things are going to get hyper-expensive, and fast. Only the rich will have warm homes and the poor, overpopulated masses are going to suffer terribly. Untold millions are going to die, and it's going to be nasty. We won't have the resources or inclination to help others because we'll be too busy trying to stay alive ourselves. The disparity between have and have-nots will be an unfathomable gulf, and if you're on the wrong end you'll be so fucked that you'll wish you were dead.

Have a think about this, and all of the problems in the world that our leaders, and that we, ignore. To quote from my earlier video, exponential consumption of a finite resource. We're not slowing down. We're going to hit a brick wall and then we're all fucked.

Cheerfully I don't predict it getting really bad for another 100 years or so, so I'll be dead before the shit really hits the fan.

Ok.

The problem is that while we can introduce whatever laws we like, there's other countries waiting who'll quite happily accept the work if we make things sifficiently hard for the employers. Unless they also introduce those standards, jobs will go towards them.

Alternatively, rich countries could strive to become self sufficient on all levels (maybe in union with other rich countries), which really shouldn't be impossible, given technology. But such a society would strip the rich of all their privileges, which is why it isn't going happen.

How could that happen? No rich (or indeed any) country is self sufficient in oil, gas, metals, uranium, rare earths, food production, water etc, so trade is inevitable. If you're talking about a rich country club, that was essentially The West until mid 1990s; China has changed all that and the globe has finite resources that we are all fighting over, with increasing numbers of mouths to feed. These are the big picture realities that the likes of Bob Crow and his ilk never even think about, less still acknowledge.

You might not have ever been on strike or in a union but surely many workers rights only exist because of people who did. If the unions are completely obliterated then isn't there a danger that these rights will just be continually eroded?

Well, it probably couldn't happen while maintaining the current life style, which is the other problem, I suppose.

That's fair comment mate but just because unions were very much needed 50 or. 100 years ago does not necessarily mean they are now, in today's modern world with employment law etc. To be fair I'm not saying there should not be unions, just no unions like the fucking RMT.

Exactly. This is what this is all about.

I don't know where to find articles in English about this stuff, but there are grass roots movements to form self sufficient communities starting all over the place, building your own house using all kinds of modern knowledge about reuse of energy and materials, having a garden that provides as much as possible, and so on. I find it very interesting, because it doesn't seem like an impossible dream to me, but people obviously won't be able to just go on the way things are now.

If by real, you mean 'current' then I completely agree. Of course the way the real world works today is temporary at best. The worlds economy needs, sustained exponential growth to be 'healthy' - but in a world of finite resources, that is not possible. The end of growth will require a huge, fundamental shift in how society works. With that on the horizon, why not think ideally in however we replace it?



I was only thinking in terms of the whole planet.



It wasn't an argument as much as a question and thought experiment, but I don't see why (a) can't happen. (And by definition, if we start acting globally, I would argue we can be far more selfish as a species).
(b) isn't the case because (a) isn't the case. If we act globally, then we are in charge of our economic destiny.

We have made fundamental, insane changes to society in crazy short periods of time (mobile phones, internet, racial/sexual equality improvements etc).




I think sometimes you have to think big. (For example: the NHS was a big thought, when we were at our most skint).

I would argue thats ten years, of dealing with the current most imminent crisis. we need a bit more long range, large scale thought. And we won't get it from competing companies, or arguing govs (universities are our best bet). But I'll stick with the pipe dream, because long term, thats all humanities got.

Thats what it comes down to. Growing up and acting globally. Or staying divided and have all the shit we have.

The latter is what we have. The former is what we need (and seems impossible).

Impossible yes. We're doomed. But on the plus side Dark Souls 2 is out, so let's procrastinate and play that instead.

I see what you are saying, Lave, it's Communism in effect, as implemented by some World Order? Time does not permit a proper response; I know your intentions are 100% well meaning, even logical, but consider what type of world this would actually give rise to, and even if somehow perfectly executed, the MEAN (global) standard of living we'd be asking every human being living in US, Japan, Europe etc to accept. (Forget your 3 day working week lol) It's not gonna happen mate, principally because we are selfish, flawed humans, not computers.

Ah, don't come at me with communism.

In the simplest understanding, there is left and right. And all systems of governments exist at some point on this line. But I don't think that the political space is 1 dimensional. I think there are additional dimensions. So we are not just stuck on a spectrum between communism to capatilism.

In the 3D space of politics I'm sure their is a system of government and/or economy that can exist, and remain stable, that is outside those ideas, whilst just and fair. We just need to discover it. Govs and Corps are too self motivated so again, Unis are our best bet.

I'm not sure we can transition to them whilst growth remains exponential though. But hopefully without war/anarchy*

*WE NEED TO BUILD SOME PYRAMIDS, HO HO CIVJOKE.

EDIT: I WILL SETTLE FOR DARK SOULS 2.

I'm not sure Unions could ever be descibed as anything other than self motivated either.
Universities, mind...

Unions, CEOs, Governments, etc.

They are all partisan figureheads for groups at economic (or literal) war with each other. If given half the chance they'll enslave one another. One solution is to just grow the hell up.

The other is to ensure that each group is of roughly equal power. Currently Unions and Govs are in the descent.

New Zealand is probably the closest you'll find, with a decent land mass and a tiny population.
They have good access to renewable energy plus natural gas, can feed themselves dozens of times over and have plenty of natural resources.

Obviously life wouldn't carry on exactly as it is, but they could in theory cut themselves off from the rest of the world.

Of course where this falls over is when the hungry and thirsty Australians invade, not to mention all the Asian neighbours and the rest of the world.

That's my take. Software is eating the world, and as programmers, we're the teeth. I've written software to enable a client to increase efficiency and hence downsize a call centre. It's not pretty but it's progress. This story is being carried out millions of times a day all over the planet. Technological innovation removes more jobs than it creates because manufacturing at scale is a huge force multiplier. Not all jobs can be automated, for sure, but then again a society only needs so many baristas.

So it seems to me inevitable that we're going to run out of real work for people to do. The question is how we structure our society to cope with that.

I don’t agree with zero hour contracts as they exploit workers in many cases and are not a solution to getting people of the dole long term.

I also don't think people working in airports and driving tubes should be getting over paid and have endless rights, the tube drivers can be automated and the airport workers are mostly unskilled in jobs like security.

Employment rights for everyone are shit in the UK. My company would pay me 3 weeks per year of service in the event of redundancy, they want a “fuck off and don’t come back” compromise agreement signed in the presence of a lawyer before they pay though.

I would get sod all without this “enhanced” package. My mother in law (In Ireland) got the same terms when she was laid off from a reception manager’s job. Difference is the state paid it. If you start talking about people in my company in Germany and Belgium then they get more weeks and the salary has a multiplier.

When you get over 60 it gets better in the EU, two senior people were laid off at the same time in my dept a few year ago. The guy based in Germany was paid for a year to sit at home then got his redundancy because he was 61, the UK was younger but would have always just left with a payoff.

As I went on about at length here, it's worth bearing in mind that many of the actual employment protections we currently have are as a result of the EU.

The government, on the other hand, wants to get rid of as many of them as possible due to them being "an impediment to business" (or "an impediment to being able to fuck over the workers as much as possible"). They've already made it impossible to claim unfair dismissal in the first 2 years of employment, for example.

Who else will stand up to this other than the unions?

The Labour Party. LOL.

Well, exactly.

Don't you think they are all the same? One party blows money until the public are sick of it. The other one comes in and tightens the belt until everyone is pissed off.

Will be interesting to see how many people vote UKIP in protest this time as I think a lot of people are sick of the others

FTFY

Stewart Lee was quite amusing on that subject last week.

I tell people this all the time. And not just on employment, there's lots of areas where Europe is protecting the average persons interests from big business (and the fecking insurance industry).

Europe are our friends and the Tories only want to get out of Europe so they can fuck us over without impunity.

"Of the UKIPS" for some reason really kept tickling me.

Tch, do you want all your bananas straightened? Well, DO YOU?!?

And very rude about Liverpool

Lib Dems are the only pro-Europe party left, it seems.

On the subject of zero hour contracts, a lot of the half a million people on them will be seasonal shop assistants. It's common practice to employ temp assistants on zero hour contracts.

It's not half a million total, it's half a million new people this year. Dunno what the total is.

Ah right. Still, seasonal workers will be classed as "new" every year

A long time since I last posted but I see nothing has changed.

Chinny trolling about the dead, which historically is one of his favourite occupations.

Myp telling everyone regularly that he has multiple people on ignore and trolling merrily. Obviously bored and oozing passive aggressiveness from every pore.

And the normal suspects prodding Cavey until he can take no more.

I do admire your consistency.

It's good to see you've not changed either. You shit-stirring twat.

I hate you all and hope you die.



Nothing but sub-human scum the lot of you.

Yeah but enough about that Nemmie... Make sure you vote in the top 50 games thread.

Nemmie! Hope you're well, man

Labour are still (relatively) pro-Europe, certainly by their European affiliation, but they have to tone down that side of things. They know that a lot of grassroots supporters, particularly the oldies, definitely aren't pro-Europe, same with the party's old-fashioned Left.

Admittedly they aren't as pro-Europe as their counterparts and allies across Europe, certainly not the German SPD for example, but then Britain does collectively suffer from a 'special snowflake syndrome' when it comes to the EU, unfortunately.

We conquered the fuck out of Europe recently and only gave most of it back due to womens getting married and then only because we had such a jolly time of it we might have wanted to do it all again

I'd prefer to believe we're less inclined as a people to mindlessly concede and defer a variety of national powers and regulations to a cavalcade of unelected, untaxed nepotistically-appointed technocrats sitting in a parliament on the continent.

Tony Benn!

Nooooooooooo!

Time for the fascist cretins to come crawling out the woodwork again.

Any discussion about this is certainly pretty likely to go south very quickly. Although it could be argued you're only hastening that with this kind of taunt.