So engineering food to get people hooked is honorable?
Oh so its not “physiologically become addictive” anymore, it’s “addictive-type behavior”?
I think I understand your problem now. You don’t actually know what words mean, do you?
2 Likes
Lol, oh no, you’re not roping me into this bullshit again.
1 Like
No more or less honorable than engineering (by which I mean designing + advertising) a vehicle vastly more powerful and expensive than people actually need. As Jon Stewart once put it on The Daily Show (paraphrasing from memory), “The auto manufacturers sell us SUVs to pull the boats we don’t own up the mountains we don’t live next to.”
Like I said above: Welcome to capitalism.
2 Likes
Don’t you tell me not to take my boat up to a lake in Colorado. Ruining my weekend plans.
My son is working in CO this summer, in the Durango area. I’ve been to CO once on a family vacation–so unbelievably beautiful! Very jealous if you live there.
I used to, I’m in Texas now. Still have a lot of family and visit as much as I can. I can’t say Durango is my favorite spot though.
Yeah, we traveled deeper into the state. Durango was impressive to a swamp creature such as myself, but CO definitely gets more spectacular when you go farther north.
1 Like
I always laugh when people go to eastern Colorado thinking they will get mountains. No, sorry, that’s basically just like Kansas.
1 Like
5 Likes
The irony of John Denvers life and death never ceases to amaze me.
1 Like
3 Likes
Damn straight. If you get the chance to go again, hit up Rocky Mountain National Park and then later into the center range for Buena Vista. The hiking and views are incredible. Plus the best motorcycle roads in the lower 48
1 Like
Lol. Technically we don’t “need” anything more than 2000cals, 128 ounces of water, a few vitamins and minerals and some shelter. All set. Step forward for your next serving of soylient green. Come to think of it, we don’t “need” internet to debate with lifters about politics. 
1 Like
You’re suggesting capitalism is an unalloyed good, that is has no negative aspects or sequelae?
Well capitalism is just capital markets (equity and debt). Businesses with positive NPV projects can access capital markets to buy assets, fund operations and grow. So yes that’s good.
The ills you are talking about (greed and unbridled consumerism) are separate things entirely. People often equate the profit motive with capitalism also, as if nobody made profits before joint stock companies.
I was really just needling you about “needs” for fun. Who determines what another person “needs”?
1 Like
Hmm, I’m not familiar with such a restricted definition of capitalism. I certainly don’t think that’s the definition most people have in mind when they use the term.
So far, and per this thread, it’s 1) Big Pharma, 2) Big Junk Food, and 3) either Ford or Jon Stewart (I forget the details).
1 Like
Unfortunately, like many things, what capitalism is (or, more appropriately what it isn’t) get’s lost in the sauce.
Capitalism is just economic theory based around all things being private (capital, investment, economic decision making, market, etc…). Bernie Madoff screwing people out of millions has nothing to do with what capitalism is.
It’s just greed ie the human condition…
2 Likes
Sure it does. The lack of regulation makes a Madoff possible. Central to the concept of capitalism is that the consumer is wholly responsible for assuming the risks of his/her economic decisions.Caveat emptor, etc.
If one is going to take the good that comes with capitalism, one must be willing to take the bad as well.
The regulation was already in place, which is why Bernie is now in jail serving multiple life sentences.
Agreed.
Again, the fact that person A might screw person B in a consensual transaction has nothing to with the system itself.
That’s sort of like saying it’s the knife’s fault OJ killed his wife, allegedly…
3 Likes