Yes, we would give up that comfortable lifestyle. In the absence of either greed or threat, why work? And without work, what drives productivity?

See, this is why we ignore people like you- you'd offer up a life chasing buffalo and living in a tent as a better alternative to a modern industrial society. For those of us not into permanent camping as a lifestyle, there is no way we want you making economic decisions. And fortunately, since your choices lead to being impoverished- by the actual productivity standards, not some equality metric- you get steamrolled by our way.

Because your non-capitalist societies had one crucial, critical, inescapable flaw: they couldn't defend themselves. Everything else they did was rendered irrelevant by that.

Inequality isn't poverty. A tribe of hunter-gatherers who have some furs and spears shared equally between them is not richer than modern LA.

Then do non-capitalist economies have a better track record at reducing poverty than capitalist ones? Because even your nordic-model states are capitalist.

Iirc, you can track a civilization pretty well just by measuring the amount of power available to it. We have the modern world because we've been able to heavily use fossil fuels since the 1830s or so.

Without those, or a replacement, everybody goes back to raising horses and plowing a lot.

When your problem is my solution and vice versa, this discussion is not going to go well.

Sounds great for us, then.

But are you suggesting we'd be happier if wealth were evenly divided?

Not my point. Are you suggesting we'd be happier if we were all in the fields?

Considering the rich portion is the capitalist part, this seems to be a fine support for it. Or is a world where we all toil in the fields equally somehow better?

No, capitalism simply is the private ownership of capital. But since some people will turn capital into more capital and others won't, you get the gaps between rich and poor. It doesn't require anyone to get poorer.

We obviously would. Even if all resources were evenly divided, the leader who says "We can all have more tomorrow" is going to be more popular than one saying "This is all you'll ever have, so you'd better learn to like it."

Automation is great. Without it, we'd still be making everything by hand and we'd have very few manufactured goods as a result, and those would be expensive.

So if you don't want endless growth, how do you suggest dealing with people who want more tomorrow than they have today?

So if the problem with both capitalism and AI is that the people who create them use them for their own ends and motives, is your problem simply that people want something other than some general good for all humanity? Is your alternative forced altruism or something like it?

There's one obvious example of why. Does it hurt more to break your leg, or see someone you love break a leg, or to see a random stranger break a leg?

How you rank those is going to determine your views on equality.

> A pissed off Serbian with a revolver could destroy civilizations.

Yes, but why was he pissed off? Nationalism had to be invented somewhere.

> For myself I want to know why everyone seems to agree that happiness is the goal.

Saying happiness is the goal isn't a problem. Saying that not being happy is some sort of failure or problem which must be remedied as soon as possible definitely is.

Life has ups and downs, and in the end you die. Bearing the burden of unhappiness with equanimity is part of a good and wise life.

Which is why a lot of good advice isn't "How to be happy" but "How to handle that."

The idea is that having a desire for things that don't happen is sure to cause you unhappiness. "Wish" is maybe a bit of a bad term to use there, but it also works- don't hope for things to happen, just accept what happens.

You can still work to make things happen, of course, but don't put any emotional investment into one result. Maybe you try to make your favorite dinner and get it. Great. Maybe you try to make it and the stove breaks and you can't. Okay. If you focus on the difference between the thing you wanted and the thing that happened, you'll just make yourself miserable.

> Had they cracked down on the first Monday protests at the beginning, things might have gone differently.

This seems to be a frequent miscalculation of authoritarian regimes- the idea that if they let the boot up for a while it'll be okay and let some pressure off. It does not- it only aggravates the situation.

Once you put the boot down, you must forever keep it down.

> I can imagine OTC epipens being used for all sorts of nonsense.

One does wonder if the people who are so overly sensitive to those side effects are going to jab themselves with an epipen twice, though.

Nothing helps an anxious disposition like dumping some catecholamines into the mix.

Dude...that's a case report.

And epinephrine has a half life in plasma of about two to three minutes. Do you think that someone's going to replace their morning pick-me-up by stabbing themselves with an expensive auto-injector every ten minutes?

Unless it's a weekend, holiday, etc.

Really, what harm are you trying to prevent by keeping the thing prescription?

The main issue is time- once someone is told they are allergic to something and should carry an epipen in case of anaphylaxis, why require a prescription for it?

If you forget to pack one for your kid on vacation, should you need to see a doctor to get one?

I practically guarantee you that more people are going to harm themselves with OTC acetaminophen/paracetamol than would do so with epi pens.

It's also an interesting perspective- that political issues are fundamentally economic ones rather than ideological ones.

There's definitely a lot to be said for this approach- something similar to the Roman cursus honorum, where you'd have a number of political offices you were expected to hold before you got to the top ones.

Goodness knows we've seen what you can get when you elect someone with absolutely no experience holding political office before.