Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Mo_reese]

Bilderberg 2024: CEOs, billionaires, and govt officials meet behind closed doors in Madrid

When a Conspiracy Theory is probably a real conspiracy.

The definition of conspiracy is “the act of conspiring with others, usually in secret”. The definition of conspire is, “to act in harmony with others toward a common end, usually nefarious or illegal.”

For seven decades CEO's of major corporations, billionaires, and top government officials, hold their annual Bilderberg Meeting behind closed doors. Some have been saying for decades that those that attend are conspiring and not for the betterment of man kind but most likely on how to increase their wealth. You won't find comprehensive coverage of these meeting in the corporate news because corporations support the concept of the conspiracy.

If one dares to call attention to the conspiracy, they will labeled a Conspiracy Theorist in an attempt by the wealthy class establishment to silence skeptics.

I believe it is foolish not to recognize that the wealthy conspire to increase their wealth often at the expense of the not-wealthy. "It's not personal is capitalism."

[Lagayascienza]

Yup. True. It doesn't matter how rich or powerful people get, it seems it's never enough. And the richer and more powerful they become, the more they are inclined to squeeze more out of the levels below. Hence gigs like Bilderberg 2024.

Maybe it's just nature doing its thing. The successful are compelled to consolidate their position and to hell with the rest. Ordinary notions of morality may have nothing to do with it. If one believes that the highest morality involves doing and getting what one wants above all else, then that is what they will do. Maybe folks who believe that are right. Maybe that's all there is to it. What does nature do with losers? It lets them go extinct.

I'm hoping that is not the whole truth because, not only does it seem unfair (perhaps only to the likes of me) but it is also trashing the planet for all of us.

We need to find a better way.

[LuckyR]

Any group promotes the group's interests against other groups.

[Good_Egg]

There's a risk of circular reasoning here.

Suppose we start from the position that purple aliens are good aliens and blue aliens are bad aliens. Then we see purple aliens meeting together to discuss co-ordinated activity in their mutual interest and we call it "solidarity". And solidarity is a good thing and demonstrates their inherent virtue. Whereas blue aliens meeting together to discuss co-ordinated activity in their mutual interest is "conspiracy". And conspiracy is a bad thing and demonstrates their inherent nefariousness...

So at that level , this is all prejudiced nonsense.

It's driven by an erroneous concept of wealth that sees wealth as necessarily obtained at someone else's expense. It's "fixed pie" thinking. If the pie is of fixed size, then a larger slice for you means a smaller slice for me.
Whereas the true nature of pie is that we can organise ourselves to produce more of it.

The other aspect is about secrecy. Is it true that the only possible reason for secrecy is because one is contemplating something nefarious ?

Put that way, the answer is obviously no.

If you see an opportunity - an undervalued asset, an unspoiled paradise of a holiday location, a gap in the market - and you share that insight with the world, then the opportunity won't be there for very long.

Competition exists sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's an essential difference between out-competing someone and doing them down.

There's a natural human desire to know other people's secrets, but we delude ourselves if we think this is something we have a right to.

[Pattern-chaser]

Any group promotes the group's interests against other groups.

Suppose we start from the position that purple aliens are good aliens and blue aliens are bad aliens. Then we see purple aliens meeting together to discuss co-ordinated activity in their mutual interest and we call it "solidarity". And solidarity is a good thing and demonstrates their inherent virtue. Whereas blue aliens meeting together to discuss co-ordinated activity in their mutual interest is "conspiracy". And conspiracy is a bad thing and demonstrates their inherent nefariousness...

So at that level, this is all prejudiced nonsense.

I agree with your conclusion, above, but observe that this is what humans do, and probably have always done.

It's driven by an erroneous concept of wealth that sees wealth as necessarily obtained at someone else's expense. It's "fixed pie" thinking. If the pie is of fixed size, then a larger slice for you means a smaller slice for me.
Whereas the true nature of pie is that we can organise ourselves to produce more of it.

At the risk of veering off-topic, isn't your final sentiment the reason our environment and ecosystem is collapsing? That we continue to expand our demands of the world, far beyond what the world can provide *sustainably*? I rather think that the size of our actual, real-life, pie is fixed, or at least has a maximum limit, determined by the existence and availability of (so-called natural) resources.

[Good_Egg]

Yes, the environmental movement is full of "fixed pie" thinkers. Which is why Green parties drift to the left...

So what's wrong with the view of sustainability limits to the size of the pie ?

Consider land. With a few small exceptions, such as Dutch polders, the supply of land is fixed. And has been recognised as such since the beginning of economics. Did economic growth stop at the point where all the land was owned ? No.





is a resource that

[Belinda]

There's a risk of circular reasoning here.

Suppose we start from the position that purple aliens are good aliens and blue aliens are bad aliens. Then we see purple aliens meeting together to discuss co-ordinated activity in their mutual interest and we call it "solidarity". And solidarity is a good thing and demonstrates their inherent virtue. Whereas blue aliens meeting together to discuss co-ordinated activity in their mutual interest is "conspiracy". And conspiracy is a bad thing and demonstrates their inherent nefariousness...

So at that level , this is all prejudiced nonsense.

It's driven by an erroneous concept of wealth that sees wealth as necessarily obtained at someone else's expense. It's "fixed pie" thinking. If the pie is of fixed size, then a larger slice for you means a smaller slice for me.
Whereas the true nature of pie is that we can organise ourselves to produce more of it.

The other aspect is about secrecy. Is it true that the only possible reason for secrecy is because one is contemplating something nefarious ?

Put that way, the answer is obviously no.

If you see an opportunity - an undervalued asset, an unspoiled paradise of a holiday location, a gap in the market - and you share that insight with the world, then the opportunity won't be there for very long.

Competition exists sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's an essential difference between out-competing someone and doing them down.

There's a natural human desire to know other people's secrets, but we delude ourselves if we think this is something we have a right to.

Purple aliens would ,we hope, discuss the aftermath of unfair and cruel treatment of enemies. If
out- group blue aliens are desperate enough (hungry, starving, disempowered) they will be a threat to purple aliens.
Wealth is for sharing. Human nature is unfit for pure communism, as has been seen. However unfair distribution can and must be avoided by all parties, through fair and lawful political regime.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, the environmental movement is full of "fixed pie" thinkers. Which is why Green parties drift to the left...

So what's wrong with the view of sustainability limits to the size of the pie ?

Consider land. With a few small exceptions, such as Dutch polders, the supply of land is fixed. And has been recognised as such since the beginning of economics. Did economic growth stop at the point where all the land was owned ? No.


is a resource that

Population growth and economic growth in the context of a fixed amount of agricultural and pastoral land has only been possible by increasing the productivity of the available land. But what if their are natural limits to the productivity that can be squeezed out of the available land?

There do seem to be such limits. For example, adding more fertilizer to crops only works up to a point, beyond which it is useless or harmful. And there are other problems with artificially pushing up productivity. For example, the use of antibiotics in farmed animals to raise production is causing problems with resistant super bugs that can be harmful to humans and to wild animals.

And overstocking on marginal pastoral land causes its degradation and makes it useless for further pastoral production. These are just a couple of examples which suggest that it may not be possible to keep increasing the size of "the pie" indefinitely.

And already, between one quarter and one third of GHG emissions come from agriculture. Further destruction of forests in the Amazon and elsewhere for grazing land is worsening this problem.

We will have to find answers to these problems if we want to keep growing the pie. Some will say that there is no reason to think that we won't find answers because we have always done so before. But that is an overstatement. Civilisations have died out before when they exceeded the carrying capacity of their land. Ancient Mesopotamian a case in point. At that time it didn't matter much for the overall human project if a civilization failed due to land degradation because there was plenty of unoccupied fertile land elsewhere. That is not the case today.

The solution to this problem is simple in arithmetic terms. If feeding eight billion humans exceeds the capacity of the land, then why not just decrease our population by reducing fertility rates? However, that is not a solution all are comfortable with for economic and other reasons. If we cannot do it that way, then we are going to need a technological fix. What that would look like is far from clear. So a solution may not be simple after all. But we will need to find one, nonetheless.

[Pattern-chaser]

Whereas the true nature of pie is that we can organise ourselves to produce more of it.

Yes, the environmental movement is full of "fixed pie" thinkers.

OK, instead of responding to the idea (that the world's resources are finite/limited), could you expand on what you said before? How can the 'pie' get bigger? How can continuous expansion happen in a world where the means* for that expansion are finite, limited and dwindling?



* — i.e. so-called 'natural' resources: minerals, ores, fossil fuels, grazing land, or all land? Even water...?

[Good_Egg]

Population growth and economic growth in the context of a fixed amount of agricultural and pastoral land has only been possible by increasing the productivity of the available land. But what if their are natural limits to the productivity that can be squeezed out of the available land?

You're lumping together population growth and economic growth.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you say about limits to food production, and thus to the number of people that our planet can support. Environmental thinking is valuable.

I'm suggesting that "economic growth" includes two components. More people enjoying the same average standard of material prosperity. And the same number of people enjoying - on average - greater prosperity.

And when we talk of individuals or a society being wealthy we mean the second of these elements.

Part of our wealth, our material standard of living, involves goods and services which didn't exist 100 years ago. The physical limits on land supply have not prevented increasing wealth.

The metals we need to give an increasing population computer hardware, for example, are in finite supply. But there's no such hard limit on the value of the software we write, and sell or give to each other.

Wealth is not a zero-sum commodity. And thus fixed-pie thinking applied to wealth is inherently false.

[I'm also not asserting materialism, not ruling out spirituality. Just setting that to one side for the purpose of economic discussion].

[LuckyR]

The earth has finite limits on how many humans it can support, of course. But as has hit the mainstream media recently (but has been well understood in professional statistical circles for many decades), the global population is several decades from it's maximum, to be followed by a very dramatic drop-off. Thus while population numbers are a concern, most in leadership are grappling with the impending implosion.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, if the projected population decline occurs, that may take some pressure off ecosystems, the climate and agriculture.

[Good_Egg]

The earth has finite limits on how many humans it can support, of course. But as has hit the mainstream media recently (but has been well understood in professional statistical circles for many decades), the global population is several decades from it's maximum, to be followed by a very dramatic drop-off. Thus while population numbers are a concern, most in leadership are grappling with the impending implosion.

That is indeed what is forecast to happen. We don't lack the ability to make forecasts. What we seem to lack is a clear, sound philosophical answer to the question of whether we be should be concerned or try to do anything to change the forecast rise or the forecast fall.

Seems like there's no shortage of people who will say that the forecast rise is an act of God that we cannot or should not try to do anything to change, but the forecast fall is a threat that we must combat, or vice versa.

The complicating factor being that the earth supports not one single society of humans, but multiple societies in different territories or nations.

And those who cannot see beyond the idiocy of fixed-pie thinking tend to argue that a nation whose population is going down thereby incurs some sort of moral duty to donate its resources to a nation whose population is going up.

Thereby getting wrong the population question as well as the wealth question.

[Pattern-chaser]

And those who cannot see beyond the idiocy of fixed-pie thinking...

You keep referring to this, but have not justified your own position, as far as I can see. You have referred indirectly to some magical means by which the size of the pie can be increased, but our planetary existence seems to take place in a closed and finite system...? [Ignoring, for now, interplanetary travel.]

[LuckyR]

The earth has finite limits on how many humans it can support, of course. But as has hit the mainstream media recently (but has been well understood in professional statistical circles for many decades), the global population is several decades from it's maximum, to be followed by a very dramatic drop-off. Thus while population numbers are a concern, most in leadership are grappling with the impending implosion.

That is indeed what is forecast to happen. We don't lack the ability to make forecasts. What we seem to lack is a clear, sound philosophical answer to the question of whether we be should be concerned or try to do anything to change the forecast rise or the forecast fall.

Seems like there's no shortage of people who will say that the forecast rise is an act of God that we cannot or should not try to do anything to change, but the forecast fall is a threat that we must combat, or vice versa.

The complicating factor being that the earth supports not one single society of humans, but multiple societies in different territories or nations.

And those who cannot see beyond the idiocy of fixed-pie thinking tend to argue that a nation whose population is going down thereby incurs some sort of moral duty to donate its resources to a nation whose population is going up.

Thereby getting wrong the population question as well as the wealth question.

Well in the long term, I predict the fall will be timed perfectly to coincide with the loss of huge numbers of jobs due to a combination of automation and AI. It will also likely oincide with new longevity technology. Thus while the new birth stats are likely to be accurate, the population drop off will be blunted by longer lifespans.

I'm hoping the environment can recover a bit from the fewer number of total humans (and their domesticated animals).

The more savvy governments will use immigration to make up for the drop in births, this should be easy to accomplish as equatorial countries become too hot and coastal areas become too flood prone.