Humans Are Livestock

Maybe it’d be easier if you described a situation in which you don’t see humans living in a society as being enslaved. What’s your criteria for the minimum freedom such that people aren’t enslaved? For me, having a substantial amount of money that can be exchanged for goods and services of one’s choosing is a substantial amount of freedom (and we’re just talking about the US, I’d argue most of the world is sufficiently free to not be living in the equivalent of slavery).

This is why in the debate I mentioned the “captivity of stones in a gravity well”: if there’s no counterfactual society you can describe in which most people are not slaves (which is still a plausible society for humans, given what we know about human societies), then it seems like you’re saying that we’re slaves to destiny, to fate, to the ticking clock of the cosmos, and not to the supposed ‘farmers’ atop the modern hierarchy.

As for debt: Say I find a dollar on the street, how is that dollar debt? I can spend it, I can save it, I can burn it, my obligations to others haven’t changed as a result of finding that dollar. Similarly, say I do a contract job and am paid for it, how have I taken on additional debt. I can spend my pay, I can save my pay, I can burn my pay, my obligations to others haven’t changed as a result of being paid for that job. Where’s the debt? The price of a dollar? Change it to a lump of gold, or coal, or a strawberry, or whatever other valuable good you like. How does that affect my debt to another?

Like I said before…

You define living in a bubble as freedom… And don’t calculate debt…

If I’m borrowing $1000 from the casino because I’m a good customer… Do I have discretionary income … Sure, but it’s all debt …

So basically, you’re arguing that as long as we don’t have to pay debt, we are not slaves!!

Everyone in America basically lives off debt as discretionary income … Yet you define them as profit!!

With respect to debt, I’m arguing that

  • debt isn’t bad in itself,
  • carrying debt and taking on new debt are different things, and
  • plenty of people with plenty of discretionary income also have a lot of debt.

With respect to slavery, I’m arguing that having discretion means we are not slaves, whether that discretion be of income or time or life direction.

I certainly don’t think carrying debt is a sufficient condition to someone is a slave.

Look, if I borrow $1000 from a broker at 1% and use it to buy stock that’s gaining value at 7%, that is profit. If I borrow money to buy a house whose price is rising, it is profit. If I borrow money to go to school so that I can get a job that pays three times as much, it is profit.

Debt can be a burden, of course, but it doesn’t have to be, and it doesn’t have a 1-to-1 relation to discretionary income. Debt can earn you money or it can cost you money.

What do you define as freedom?

Investment is not debt !!

I can not be in debt and invest, or I can be in debt and invest…

I agree that sometimes the investment in debt can turn profit, but it’s still debt …

Debt is 1:1 to this degree, the wealthiest keep a debt culture for basic necessities to place us below the actual profit margin, and give us the illusion of discretionary income, which is much different than actually having it!

Yes, but can’t you agree that this muddies the water? If I’m in debt, but the borrowed money is turning a profit, then I may actually have discretionary income. If I’m in debt, but I am securely employed (or I know my skill-set is valuable enough that I won’t have trouble finding work) such that I expect to be able to continue to pay off the debt, I can have discretionary income.

The point is, being in debt doesn’t mean that all of your discretionary income is suddenly not discretionary.

Well… That’s basically what the stock market is, a margin of an investment on debt for profit …

The us is basically a stock with a high margin (severely in debt) that countries are betting on… That doesn’t mean the us isn’t in debt!

I’d argue even further to point out that we have a stratified economy that depends on debt to assure interest or property for the fat cats… The illusion of discretion is an aspect of how highly evolved this system of accumulation has become.

This line of discussion seems only to be confusing things. Payments due on debt are among the necessities that are paid out of earnings, leaving discretionary income. I don’t buy the argument that as long as the debt persists, the discretionary income isn’t ‘really’ discretionary, because while one has the option of paying down debt, one also has the option of not paying it down. That is a real choice, one of many beyond the set of choices actual slaves have. Do you see any of the preceding discussion as contradicting that? If so, could you spell out the point in some more detail?

I don’t think it’s confusing things too much …

For example, property taxes are rent, and this is a debt , but additionally, it either does or doesn’t cause debt… I would argue that most people are causing debt in this form of rent… Thus, their discretionary income is bubbled or debt ridden, a lie, they are slaves to the debt system.

What about the part where he said that because you can choose whether to pay off debt that you have freedom?

Debt is endemic to society … Nobody wants it, and most people never pay it off … They game the system until they die.

And do they get to make choices in that game they play with the system?

You can argue that elites have planned debt ridden “discretion” as something to write off on the expense account.

I’m actually not kidding here, or being fecitious!

But you might find it hard to prove.

What’s easy to prove is that someone can borrow money at a percentage of interest that it lower than the return they could make investing it, and that then they could pay the debt and still have extra money which they could spend on a variety of things depending on what they choose.

I may not seem like it… But I’m a really nefarious fucking dude… I know how to get laid, and how to make money … If I can figure it out, I guarantee people are using it. I’m anti nefariousness though … So I’m broke with no women.

This is false. People voluntarily take on debt all the time, and voluntarily choose not to pay it off when they could. This is true of rich and poor people, of businesses large and small, and nations at all stages of development.

There’s a difference between informed consent and desired informed consent…

Do you want me to punch you in the face or kick you in the shin?

I would argue that people either want debt because they think they can get away with it, or maybe they’re just lonely… Aside from that, I don’t think debt is a desired informed consent issue.

I don’t think who you are or what you personally do pertains to the debate at hand.

People don’t generally do things just because they can. The fact that people can often “get away with” carrying debt, i.e. carry debt to their benefit, is only part of the equation. They can get away with it, and it actually benefits them.

Well… You said it was hard to prove, and I stated that of I can figure it out, I’m sure people are doing it! That was my whole point… Perhaps over the top though …

That doesn’t mean that they “want debt”. That merely means that they want something else enough to tolerate debt.