Questions for David the Caveman

[Guest BlueBrett]

Anybody who believes there is a left and right in mainstream British politics any more is seriously deluded. To categorise our political parties as left or right is to believe that they actually have ideologies. Not so I'm afraid. Ever since Blair we've been lumbered with a bunch of cowardly 'pragmatists' more interested in polls than policies. Any consistency of policy you might perceive will be based on either the judgement that the current direction is electorally popular or the feeling that they have trapped themselves within their own political discourse and haven't got the balls to admit they are reconsidering their earlier position.

What was the last thing you heard from a minister or shadow minister that was even remotely radical or that suggested even the slightest big of independent thought? They barely even hold separate ground these days they just waste our time and piss us off by constantly bickering over adjacent shades of grey.

In case you can't tell I'm pretty ****ed off and disillusioned by it all.

edit: so my question..

What hope is there for British democracy when the 3 (soon to be 2) main parties stand for pretty much the same things, preferring to get elected based on their 'personalities', pathetic catchphrases and a sort of 'I might be a total willy puller but he's worse' approach while vast swathes of the electorate completely despair of them but find themselves in a position where they basically have to vote for one or the other?

[David the Caveman]

Sounds like you're trying to blame politicians for your own inadequacies and general disappointment with how your life is turning out. If you can't see how well ran our country actually is, all I can suggest is that you go and visit some countries which are actually poorly ran and see the difference for yourself.

[Guest BlueBrett]

Sounds like you're trying to blame politicians for your own inadequacies and general disappointment with how your life is turning out. If you can't see how well ran our country actually is, all I can suggest is that you go and visit some countries which are actually poorly ran and see the difference for yourself.

Just because over centuries the British people have managed to wrestle absolute power away from the government (although our liberties are being eroded year on year at present) and there are worse governments abroad, doesn't mean the current mode of politics we have here is desirable. Your comment does typify the problem though..the current way of doing things has become so entrenched and the same bland discourse has become so pervasive that most people haven't the brains or imagination to conceive of an alternative. Instead they prefer to squabble over minutia because it makes them feel engaged and insightful.

And by the way my life is ****ing fantastic

[Zingari]

Anybody who believes there is a left and right in mainstream British politics any more is seriously deluded. To categorise our political parties as left or right is to believe that they actually have ideologies. Not so I'm afraid. Ever since Blair we've been lumbered with a bunch of cowardly 'pragmatists' more interested in polls than policies. Any consistency of policy you might perceive will be based on either the judgement that the current direction is electorally popular or the feeling that they have trapped themselves within their own political discourse and haven't got the balls to admit they are reconsidering their earlier position.

What was the last thing you heard from a minister or shadow minister that was even remotely radical or that suggested even the slightest big of independent thought? They barely even hold separate ground these days they just waste our time and piss us off by constantly bickering over adjacent shades of grey.

In case you can't tell I'm pretty ****ed off and disillusioned by it all.

edit: so my question..

What hope is there for British democracy when the 3 (soon to be 2) main parties stand for pretty much the same things, preferring to get elected based on their 'personalities', pathetic catchphrases and a sort of 'I might be a total willy puller but he's worse' approach while vast swathes of the electorate completely despair of them but find themselves in a position where they basically have to vote for one or the other?

i agree BB but would go further. Democracy in this country , and probably throughout the world is a great big myth and the political parties are no more rivals that professional wrestlers putting on a show for us , the gullible public .

Sure they want to win , and grandstand in front of the cameras , but global bankers and multi national corporations are pulling all the strings and telling what they can and can't do .

They let the us and politicians think they are making choices , but there only Hobson's choices.

[I am Rod Hull]

Hi David

Did political freedom die when Maggie smashed the unions, killed off heavy industry and sold our amenities to fat cvnts that moan about the welfare state whiilst sitting on their arses waiting for their dividend to come through the post?

[David the Caveman]

Just because over centuries the British people have managed to wrestle absolute power away from the government (although our liberties are being eroded year on year at present) and there are worse governments abroad, doesn't mean the current mode of politics we have here is desirable. Your comment does typify the problem though..the current way of doing things has become so entrenched and the same bland discourse has become so pervasive that most people haven't the brains or imagination to conceive of an alternative. Instead they prefer to squabble over minutia because it makes them feel engaged and insightful.

And by the way my life is ****ing fantastic

How much of your fantastic life has been made possible by you being born in this country? Would you still be able to do all the things you enjoy now if you weren't privileged enough to be born here?

[Guest BlueBrett]

i agree BB but would go further. Democracy in this country , and probably throughout the world is a great big myth and the political parties are no more rivals that professional wrestlers putting on a show for us , the gullible public .

Sure they want to win , and grandstand in front of the cameras , but global bankers and multi national corporations are pulling all the strings and telling what they can and can't do .

They let the us and politicians think they are making choices , but there only Hobson's choices.

Yeah I can go for that. I'm not sure the politicians are aware of it though I reckon most labour under a grossly inflated impression of their own significance. If you take a look at the calibre of the average back bench MP it's hard to believe they have the capacity to think about anything beyond their own careers and the odd few issues of the week that interest them. If they do then they certainly don't get it across in their interviews.

How much of your fantastic life has been made possible by you being born in this country? Would you still be able to do all the things you enjoy now if you weren't privileged enough to be born here?

Perhaps not depending on the location of my alternative birthplace but I don't really see how that's relevant to this discussion.

[The Doctor]

Perhaps not depending on the location of my alternative birthplace but I don't really see how that's relevant to this discussion.

It seems like his argument is, the way this country is run has given you a better life than from being born somewhere else, so there's nothing majorly wrong with the current system.

Aside of course from that the main three parties are different puppets controlled from the same hands and singing from the same hymn sheet, and that the public have no say beyond choosing 650 puppets (about 1/100,000th of the population) to "represent" them.

[Captain...]

How much of your fantastic life has been made possible by you being born in this country? Would you still be able to do all the things you enjoy now if you weren't privileged enough to be born here?

This is another argument that drives me up the wall. Yes we are privileged to be born in the UK, but that doesn't mean we should just accept how it is run, when it is clear mistakes are being made. Or did you support the labour government when they were in charge because you were born in the UK.

[Guest BlueBrett]

It seems like his argument is, the way this country is run has given you a better life than from being born somewhere else, so there's nothing majorly wrong with the current system.

Aside of course from that the main three parties are different puppets controlled from the same hands and singing from the same hymn sheet, and that the public have no say beyond choosing 650 puppets (about 1/100,000th of the population) to "represent" them.

Thought that might be what he was saying . So we should shut up and put up with whatever flaws we identify in our political system because at least we have it better than they do in Saudi and those whining Saudi Arabian women should just think themselves lucky they weren't born in North Korea

[David the Caveman]

Earlier you were talking about the need for "radical" ideas. That would suggest to me that you think there are major problems with the country that need solving. So on the one hand it's a country that has provided you with a "****ing fantastic" life, while on the other hand you think it is so bad that it needs radical changes. Forgive me if pointing out this blatant contradiction is simply below you. While we're here, why don't you bless us with some independent thought of your own - what radical changes would you like to see enacted? And then, being honest, how many of the changes you have in mind stand to benefit you personally financially? Because I am yet, in all of my life, I am yet to hear a perennial whinger such as yourself come up with an idea which isn't focussed primarily on making themselves better off in some way.

[Captain...]

Earlier you were talking about the need for "radical" ideas. That would suggest to me that you think there are major problems with the country that need solving. So on the one hand it's a country that has provided you with a "****ing fantastic" life, while on the other hand you think it is so bad that it needs radical changes. Forgive me if pointing out this blatant contradiction is simply below you. While we're here, why don't you bless us with some independent thought of your own - what radical changes would you like to see enacted? And then, being honest, how many of the changes you have in mind stand to benefit you personally financially? Because I am yet, in all of my life, I am yet to hear a perennial whinger such as yourself come up with an idea which isn't focussed primarily on making themselves better off in some way.

I do find it odd that you associate how does it help me attitude with the left, when it is traditionally view point of the right and rampant capitalism. I'm alright so why should I care?

The left is traditionally associated with social welfare and state control.

I am in the camp that thinks we need big changes because we have progressed as a society beyond the limits of free market economics and capitalism. The ever growing imbalance of wealth and huge amounts of money and power wielded by the few means that it can no longer continue in the capitalism model that we currently have. The best way for this to be achieved is through truly global thinking, but until that happens we will constantly be competing and fighting amongst our neighbours for the same money/jobs/market regardless of who is actually best to provide it.

If you don't know what I mean think of the other thread about outsourcing to India the job of transcribing doctors notes. You cannot argue that the best person to transcribe a letter from an English doctor meant for English patients would be an English person in the medical profession. The only benefit is cost, but the priority should be getting the best person in for the job.

[Daggers]

I do find it odd that you associate how does it help me attitude with the left

I refer you to the Daily Mail

[David the Caveman]

Capitalism is the best and most successful system we have ever had. We are richer and more comfortable with more access to luxuries than any other generation has ever been in the history of human beings. And yet still people call for change. As we speak, millions are in the process of being lifted out of poverty. The world has advanced more in the last 100 years than it did in the previous 1000. And yet people still call for change. Not just any change either, but radical, global change. How narrow minded, or how greedy, do you have to be to disregard decades of immensely successful growth and innovation in favour of nit picking over a few political imperfections?

Not that I'm against progress of course, but let's be honest here, the world's greatest minds haven't been able to come up with a system better than capitalism, so what are the chances of it being figured out on here? I would encourage you to have a go though...

[21st Century Fox]

The Sunday Times Rich List, published today and compulsory reading for anybody who wants to understand Britain’s power structure today, holds three extremely significant conclusions. One is that the 1,000 richest persons in the UK have increased their wealth by so much in the last 3 years – £155bn – that they themselves alone could pay off the entire UK budget deficit and still leave themselves with £30bn to spare which should be enough to keep the wolf from the door. The second, even more staggering, is that whilst the rest of the country is being crippled by the biggest public expenditure and benefits squeeze for a century, these 1,000 persons, containing many of the bankers and hedge fund and private equity operators who caused the financial crash in the first place, have not been made subject to any tax payback whatever commensurate to their gains. This is truly a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.

The third is that despite the biggest slump for nearly a century, the slowest and most anaemic recovery, and prolonged austerity stretching to a decade or more, this ultra-rich clique are now sitting on wealth even greater than what they had amassed at the height of the boom just before the crash. Their combined wealth is now estimated at more than £414bn, equivalent to more than a third of Britain’s entire GDP. They include 77 billionaires and 23 others whose wealth exceeds £750m.

Despite these massive repositories of wealth, these are some of the very people to whom Osborne gifted £3bn in his recent budget by cutting the 50p tax rate. That measure alone gave 40,000 UK millionaires an extra average £14,000 a week, at the same time as those on very low incomes in receipt of working tax credits who couldn’t find an employer to increase their hours of work from 16 to 24 a week were being deprived in the same budget of £77 a week, around a third of their income, through their tax credits being withdrawn.

In 1997 the wealth of the richest 1,000 amounted to £99bn. The increase in their wealth over the last 15 years has therefore been £315bn. If this increase in wealth were subject to capital gains tax at the current 28% rate, it would yield £88bn, and that alone would pay off more than 70% of the total budget deficit. However Osborne seems to share the notorious view of the New York heiress, Leonora Helmsley: “taxes are only for the little people”.

Thoughts?

[David the Caveman]

Everyone should be paying a fair rate of tax.

Crap article though. One dimensional, bias. It appeals to you because it makes you think you deserve more

[Zingari]

David

What’s wrong with thinking “I deserve more”?

What’s wrong with thinking “others deserve less”?

Who decides who gets what and why is that not questionable?

What makes you believe that whatever value system is used can’t be flawed in some

way ?

Have I used up my quota of questions to David ?

[Captain...]

Capitalism is the best and most successful system we have ever had. We are richer and more comfortable with more access to luxuries than any other generation has ever been in the history of human beings. And yet still people call for change. As we speak, millions are in the process of being lifted out of poverty. The world has advanced more in the last 100 years than it did in the previous 1000. And yet people still call for change. Not just any change either, but radical, global change. How narrow minded, or how greedy, do you have to be to disregard decades of immensely successful growth and innovation in favour of nit picking over a few political imperfections?

Not that I'm against progress of course, but let's be honest here, the world's greatest minds haven't been able to come up with a system better than capitalism, so what are the chances of it being figured out on here? I would encourage you to have a go though...

Yes Capitalism is better than feudalism, it is a great tool for getting countries to develop and went hand in hand with the industrial revolution, it rewards innovation and hard work at the expense of laziness and incompetence. It all came at a cost and that was greed and poverty. Capitalism only works if people spend the majority of what they earn, if they re-invest it and continue to grow.

The problem with all that is that it requires continuous growth, not all companies can grow we live in a world of finite resources, and we are reaching that capacity, that is why we need to change. If we keep on growing at the rate we are we will soon run out of resources, Oil, gas, even nuclear are finite resources. This is why capitalism needs to change, until we can harness the limitless power of the sun and other renewable energies, we need to rework the model to encourage stability. Capitalist concepts such as built in obsolence, so that goods need to be replaced after a few years are great for stimulating more profits and revenue but are seriously wasteful when it comes to having finite resources.

The problem is since we have known about these limited resources we have seen prices rocket because of scarcity further worsening the situation by funnelling money straight into the pockets of the oil barons.

We need to change because our circumstances are changing, I said the same during the period of growth, we have energy resources set to run out in our lifetimes, we have an ever expanding global population and ever increasing demands on our resources. We have the capability to cope with all that, but not when we are building things to break in 5 years, making things cheap but not to last, being hugely wasteful in all our daily lives, just look at how much food is disposed of every day in supermarkets, it is scandalous that this food is thrown out when people are starving, even to the point of spoiling the food with chemicals so that nobody can rob it from the bins. How much do we waste in shipping goods that we can make in the UK from abroad?

All of this and more is done in the name of making more money, it is written off as an expendable loss, that is what we have learnt under capitalism, that everything is justified if it will make you more money.

[David the Caveman]

Capitalism will dictate the switch to renewable energy as soon as it becomes cheaper to do so. We can speed that up if we want by imposing even higher taxes on use of oil etc but that will inhibit growth and prevent innovation in other areas such as medicine and technology. It seems like you're saying 'I'm happy now, let's not progress ant further' but I wonder if you'll be saying the same thing if you find yourself with cancer or some other problem that could perhaps have been prevented by then if only you hadn't put the breaks on innovation in favour of some vague and undefined concept if fairness which has no basis in logic at all.

Your food problem, for instance, assumes that with current technology we could feed everyone and that may well be true, but that technology came from capitalism. What happens in the future when we have new problems, but no new technology to help overcome them? Is it better to have a cure but only use it at 50% of its potential, or have no cure at all?

[Captain...]

Capitalism will dictate the switch to renewable energy as soon as it becomes cheaper to do so. We can speed that up if we want by imposing even higher taxes on use of oil etc but that will inhibit growth and prevent innovation in other areas such as medicine and technology. It seems like you're saying 'I'm happy now, let's not progress ant further' but I wonder if you'll be saying the same thing if you find yourself with cancer or some other problem that could perhaps have been prevented by then if only you hadn't put the breaks on innovation in favour of some vague and undefined concept if fairness which has no basis in logic at all.

Your food problem, for instance, assumes that with current technology we could feed everyone and that may well be true, but that technology came from capitalism. What happens in the future when we have new problems, but no new technology to help overcome them? Is it better to have a cure but only use it at 50% of its potential, or have no cure at all?

Of course we can feed everyone now with current technology, and I am not saying do away with innovation, you have missed my point entirely, we are currently on a head on collision with the very real fact that we will run out of energy, then we will be fvcked.

The problem is capitalism has created a very short term outlook on life and balance books.

I have worked in a wind turbine manufacturing energy company, basically the return on a wind turbine is huge, but it takes 6 years to pay off the cost of it, once that is paid of you have up to 15 more years of non stop profit, but people are reluctant because of the millions needed up front.

My problem with capitalism is not innovation, it is the anti innovation that is driven by profit that is killing us. We could all have washing machines, cookers, fridges, mobile phones, cars that last us a lifetime. We don't because if that happened it would not be profitable to make these things, the company that designs the fridge that lasts a lifetime will do itself out of customers.

You mention medicine, this is another sector that is full of corruption due to relentless profiteering. I have read reports detailing the reasons why there is no cure for AIDS and not much research into it is because it is not profitable, to find a cure for it would then allow it to be eliminated, then all the money made on drugs to help keep AIDS sufferers alive would be lost, and due to the relatively low number of cases of AIDS it would need a huge return on each treatment to make a return on all the research required. I will try and find that report, but it I am at work at the moment.

[Webbo]

Round of applause for David, I perhaps wouldn't put everything as aggressively as he has at times but I can't find much of what he's said that I disagree with.

[sphericalfox]

Of course we can feed everyone now with current technology, and I am not saying do away with innovation, you have missed my point entirely, we are currently on a head on collision with the very real fact that we will run out of energy, then we will be fvcked.

The problem is capitalism has created a very short term outlook on life and balance books.

I have worked in a wind turbine manufacturing energy company, basically the return on a wind turbine is huge, but it takes 6 years to pay off the cost of it, once that is paid of you have up to 15 more years of non stop profit, but people are reluctant because of the millions needed up front.

My problem with capitalism is not innovation, it is the anti innovation that is driven by profit that is killing us. We could all have washing machines, cookers, fridges, mobile phones, cars that last us a lifetime. We don't because if that happened it would not be profitable to make these things, the company that designs the fridge that lasts a lifetime will do itself out of customers.

You mention medicine, this is another sector that is full of corruption due to relentless profiteering. I have read reports detailing the reasons why there is no cure for AIDS and not much research into it is because it is not profitable, to find a cure for it would then allow it to be eliminated, then all the money made on drugs to help keep AIDS sufferers alive would be lost, and due to the relatively low number of cases of AIDS it would need a huge return on each treatment to make a return on all the research required. I will try and find that report, but it I am at work at the moment.

Think of all those poor stupid bastards who spent lots of money on 'almost' HD televisions, as they were too ignorant to understand that the product they were being offered was an interim to to full HD that manufacturers could profit massively from, when they could easily make the full HD products for exactly the same price.

The technology for energy conservative products, big and large already exists across swathes of industry. It is not profitable to put out your best product, but find ways of dumbing down your innovation so you can achieve maximum profitability over a longer period under the premise that this is the your premier innovation. Many industries, mainly the car industry are complicit in maintaining a status quo for as long as marketably possible. Some of their 'fusion' technology is fooking laughable, especially when you see the alternatives.

You could in fact put some public services in the spotlight - why would you want a service that eliminates a problem that it actually needs to survive? Cynically, one might say it's in the best interests of a public service to fail to retain it's existence.

[Steven]

Hallo Dave

Where do you stand on John Stuart Mill?

[skinnydipper]

David,

Are you fit to lace Chandlers shoes?

[The Doctor]

Capitalism will dictate the switch to renewable energy as soon as it becomes cheaper to do so. We can speed that up if we want by imposing even higher taxes on use of oil etc but that will inhibit growth and prevent innovation in other areas such as medicine and technology. It seems like you're saying 'I'm happy now, let's not progress ant further' but I wonder if you'll be saying the same thing if you find yourself with cancer or some other problem that could perhaps have been prevented by then if only you hadn't put the breaks on innovation in favour of some vague and undefined concept if fairness which has no basis in logic at all.

Your food problem, for instance, assumes that with current technology we could feed everyone and that may well be true, but that technology came from capitalism. What happens in the future when we have new problems, but no new technology to help overcome them? Is it better to have a cure but only use it at 50% of its potential, or have no cure at all?

which is exactly why it's a flawed system - changing our ways to lessen our impact on natural resources and the environment should not be based on money.

Capitalism may have provided us with some progression, but at the same time it holds us back, preventing progression in, for instance, medicine where we could develop cures for the likes of AID's, cancer etc. rather than the stop gap drugs that temporarily relieve the issue - however that wouldn't be profitable despite being something that should be pursued.