Re: renewables. Manufacturing the wind turbines and the solar panels is not something a small community of even 50,000 is going to be able to d along with building and staffing the water treatment facilities and the hospital and the university that teaches the engineers how to design safe water treatment facilities and hospitals and trains the doctors and nurses to work in that hospital.

Remember, you have to start with a massive empty natural area and start from the ground up to porve anything. You cannot use an existing hospital, univeristy, or water treatment facility or you are using something provided by Capitalism and Government.

@CM - and that's nice and all, but what your answer is basically saying is "I don't have the answers, but I'll think of something. Someday"

That's not exactly a strenuous rebuttal of the many problems that have been raised.

Why do you *think* this will work? Because you want it to? I want a Faster Than Light drive so I can go cruise the cosmos, but I'm unlikely to get one

Okay. I hate to admit it, but you're getting close to convincing me I'm wrong. But you're not there yet.

@Strat - give me another decade and I'll have perfected my FTL drive *and* my telelporter / time machine. they'll both be in one craft I call the TARDIS.

It's not our job to convince you that you're wrong - it's your job to convince us you are *right*. Barring a reason to change, no one is going to radically realign society just to see what happens

Can I go back in time and tell myself not to date some of the psychopathic hosebeasts I went out with when I was younger?

@CM - look at all the disciplines it takes to keep society running today. Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Software Engineering, Family Practioners, Specialist doctors in all kinds of fields from Surgeons to Endocrinologists, Dentists, Vetrinarians. These are just some of what makes the world as we know it possible. And not everyone is cut out for the farm or for the technical fields. You must leave room for the artists: poets, musicians, painters, writers, composers. Without them there is no entertainment and no books to read (remember, *nothing* fromt he outside world: not books or movies or TV shows).

@Strat - Yes, but the end result will just be that you never meet your wife and wind up marrying someone else because we are the sum of our experiences. And, as a result, you never find the need to go back and change the past, so you don't do it and... Well, you know where this paradox is going.

I figured there was a catch. Although I think my wife rocks, so I'm pretty happy with my choice ;)

Let me repost what I posted before: "Okay. I hate to admit it, but you're getting close to convincing me I'm wrong. But you're not there yet." Now come on. Convince me all the way.

Why? You're basing your idea here basically on faith, and therefore there's little point in trying to convince you otherwise. *You* were the one who said you would convince other people that your idea was feasible.

See my post above about just the basic disciplines off the top of my head required for modern society to work. you aren't going to get people to agree to give up the luxuries we now consider staples (clean water, electricity, flushable toilets to take the excrement away, heating and A/C, etc) so you would have to hand pick a gorup of people to fill those disciplines and then hope that their offspring also filled the disciplines. You prove nothing by being selfsufficient for a year or even a decade. It has to be generational or you've just proven that the loss within the system wasn't sufficient to upset the status quo as long as the population was constant, nothing more.

@stratagos: I'm admitting that I'm most likely wrong! I want to be convinced I'm wrong! What part of that don't you understand?

“@Ghost: But I believe that I have a right to do anything. I have a right to kill you. You of course also have the right to not be killed, so you have the right to defend yourself if I were to try to kill you. As I posted on another thread: Don't like murder? Then don't kill someone, and shut the fuck up. Don't like theft? Then don't steal, and shut the fuck up.”

Your rights are now in conflict. The “right not to be killed” cannot exist if there is a “right to kill”.

Ultimately, your system states that there are no rights.

So my mistake, I retract the expression of respect I made.

You're going to run into the same problems that theoretical Communists had when they tried to implement a perfect society.

Some people don't like that society. And your society's success hinges on everybody being on the same page. The problem is, people aren't generally on the same page. And if they don't want to be, your society will fall apart.

The Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist route to solve this was killing and imprisoning enemies of the People. :P I assume you would not want to do this.

So how do you solve the problem of being who are simply not in agreement with how your society is supposed to function? You must remember, most people will not be True Believers like yourself.

And Stratagos is right. You're the one with the radical idea. The burden of proof is upon YOU to convince US that your ideas are worthy of merit.

Allright CM, I'll indulge.

Here's an example: In order to build just a simple concrete (or asphalt) road you would need:

- Laborers to mine the proper materials in order to make the asphalt or concrete
- Machinists to build the tools used to mine the materials
- Mechanical Engineers to DESIGN the tools needed to mine the materials
- Oh wait, in order to build the tools we need a facility so we need a Civil Engineer to design the building to build the tools needed to mine the materials.
- Now we need laborers to build the facility along with carpenters, ironworkers, electricians and sewer specialists.
- But in order to build the facility, we need machines so we're back to the problem of how do we get the materials for machines?

This can go on and on and I haven't even touched on production of concrete or asphalt (big factories needed for large scale construction) or the actual building of the road where you'll need trucks to transport the material so you'll need an automobile plant with all human workers unless you plan on designing and building robots too. Also you'll need metal for your trucks/machines so you'll have to find natural resources which means you need high tech equipment to do surveys or a lot of people who know what to look for.

CM -

It needs to be enforced because not everyone wants to live like that. So how do you get the ones that don't want to do it... to do it?

That's why it needs to be enforced. So who does the enforcing?

@Ghostmaker: I admitted I'm most likely wrong. See above. Although that contradiction demonstrates the problems with capitalism. I have the right to make money. So does everybody else. I also have the right to not lose money. So does everybody else. Those rights are obviously contradictive, because if someone is making money, someone else is losing it. Money doesn't grow on trees.

All this is for one simple road. Many other things (think hospitals) are infinitely more complex and yet still necessary for modern society.

You do realize that your ideas are basically one step above a bunch of potheads getting high and saying "Duuuude... wouldn't it be cool if there was, like... no property, and no money, and we just shared everything and was cool..... duuuude..."

Its a noble idea, but again... the burden is on you to prove/convince us. Not for us to convince you that our current setup works.... because it does. That is why its the current setup.

You claimed that you could just "convince" everyone that they should do it.

But what about insane people. What do you do with the crazies?

Not even just the crazies.... the fanatics? How do you plan on "convincing" hardcore extremists?

I don't understand what you expect me to tell you, CM. I've pretty much laid out why your idea of a model community is unfeasible. Other people have pointed out other problems in the past such as the Free Rider Dilemma and the lack of any reason to work hard. What are you expecting me to say, that I have this magic wand that I can wave and make things clear?

You're pretty much going against anything resembling a rational economic system. If you want to believe that, you go wild. I'm not going to bang my head against the wall trying to convince you to get a grip on reality - life will do that soon enough.

Pick up "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman, since apparently your school is doing a piss poor job of teaching Econ 101

"And Stratagos is right. You're the one with the radical idea. The burden of proof is upon YOU to convince US that your ideas are worthy of merit." But I don't want to convince you that I'm right anymore.

@CM - No, you do not have the right to not lose money. therein lies the flaw of your argument against capitalism.

Ok. Then we have the end to the discussion now. :)

"I also have the right to not lose money. "

Nope, that's not true at all. You have a right to *earn* money. If you piss it away on lottery tickets or bad stock picks, that's what choice is all about. Next time pay the rent

@CM - Be honest here. No one will attack you for it. We just want to know. Exactly how old are you? We know you are under the legal driving age, but I am starting to suspect you are several years under (13ish?). It will help us to relate to you where the error in your thinking is if we know approximately what your mental age is. that is not an insult. Maturity provides perspective that overides the naivette of youth.

More precisely, you have the right to try to earn money.

Capitalism is supposed to give opportunity, not results. Communism is more about equality of results. (Again, this is the theory... the application sucks)

"Ok. Then we have the end to the discussion now." What, do you want me to start a new thread where you can fully convince me that anarchy is stupid?