Noam

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 532-534

I can now tell you categorically, with a wide safety factor, that it is now feasible, with the technology already proven, with resources already mined and recirculating, within ten years to have all of humanity living at the highest standard of living anybody has ever known, during which time we can phase out forever all further use of fossil fuels or atomic energy. We can live entirely on our energy income.
R. Buckminster Fuller, 1978 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
At today's rate, Kurzweil says, the world will experience one thousand times more technological change in the 21st century than took place in the 20th century.
Navigating a Breakpoint in History
by
William Van Dusen Wishard
WorldTrends Research
aaaaaaaaaaaaa
There are certain
harvests that never
Come again
If they are not
gathered in season
aaaa
David Whyte

1980s

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 529-531

Technology, indeed, delivered near-cost-free products in endless quantities. Scarcity was, indeed, vanquished. Per the same cost, the amount of information one can transfer through a single fiber optic swelled 100 times. Computer storage catapulted 80,000 times. Broadband and cable modems let computers communicate at 300 times their speed only 5 years ago. Scarcity turned to glut. Demand failed to catch up with supply. In the absence of clear price signals - the outcomes of scarcity - the match between the two went awry.
from
The Misconception of Scarcity
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
AA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

One of the most staggering statistics to be revealed in modern times is that every year the dollar cost of corporate crime to America, as estimated by the Bureau of National Affairs, is over ten times greater than the combined larcenies, robberies, burglaries and auto thefts committed by individuals.

That corporate America cheerfully barters the lung tumors of its asbestos workers for profit, exchanges the brain damage of thousands of children from lead poisoning for earnings... and, without adequate testing, feeds carcinogens to an entire nation to secure a possible early market advantage, diminishes the likes of Charles Manson to a prankster at a Sunday school picnic.
Gerry Spence
With Justice for None

aAS
I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.
...
Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is... being pre-industrial... not adapted to the modern world. Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right, evenly distributed throughout the community.
Bertrand Russell
In Praise Of Idleness (1932)

(emphasis JS)

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 527-528

Routines


by Tom Wayman



After a while the body doesn't want to work.
When the alarm clock rings in the morning
the body refuses to get up. "You go to work if you're so keen,"
it says. "Me, I'm going back to sleep."
I have to nudge it in the ribs to get it out of bed.
If I had my way I'd just leave you here, I tell it
as it stands blinking. But I need you to carry your end of the load.
I take the body to the bathroom.
intending to start the day as usual with a healthy dump.
But the body refuses to perform.
Come on, come on, I say between my teeth.
Produce, damn you. It's getting late.
"Listen, this is all your idea," the body says.
"If you want some turds so badly you provide 'em.
I'd just as soon be back in bed.
I give up, flush, wash, and go make breakfast.
Pretty soon I'm at work. All goes smoothly enough
until the first break. I open my lunchpail
and start to munch on some cookies and milk.
"Cut that out," the body says, burping loudly.
"It's only a couple of hours since breakfast.
And two hours from this will be lunch, and two hours after that
will be the afternoon break. I'm not a machine
you can force-feed every two hours.
And it was the same yesterday too..."
I hurriedly stuff an apple in its mouth to shut it up.
By four o'clock the body is tired
and even more surly. It will hardly speak to me.
As I drive it home. I bathe it, let it lounge around
After supper it regains some of its good spirits.
But as soon as I get ready for bed it starts to make trouble.
Look. I tell it, I've explained this over and over.
I know it's only ten o'clock but we have to be up in eight hours.
If you don't get enough rest, you'll be dragging around all day
tomorrow again, cranky and irritable.

"I don't care," the body says. "It's too early.
When do I get to have any fun? If you want to sleep
go right ahead. I'm going to lie here wide awake
until I feel good and ready to pass out."
It is hours before I manage to convince it to fall asleep.
And only a few hours after that the alarm clock sounds again.
"Must be for you," the body murmurs. "You answer it."
My body rolls over. Furious, and without saying a word,
I grab one of its feet and begin to yank it toward the edge of the bed.


AAA
The need for human labor is minuscule now, and most jobs are created merely to keep as many people off the streets as possible--not because their labor is needed, but so they can be credit-worthy consumers. Given our global material abundance and overcapacity, what we need now more than anything are consumers, not laborers, but we lack the imagination and will to create a system which accepts and deals fairly with this fact.
Dr. Jim Dator
of the Department of Political Science of the University of Hawaii at Manoa

Pharmaceutical Drugs? Are You Nuts?

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 522-526

I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You`ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
Steve Jobs
How To Live Before You Die
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A 19-year-old became the ninth worker to commit suicide this year at the Chinese factory that manufactures the Apple iPad.
Harper’s
Weekly Review
June 1, 2010
Technology is capable of expressing and being imbued with a certain generousity—and we need to demand that, in fact.
John Underkoffler
TED talks


What’s the greatest threat to our still-fragile economic recovery? Dangers abound, of course. But what I currently find most ominous is the spread of a destructive idea: the view that now, less than a year into a weak recovery from the worst slump since World War II, is the time for policy makers to stop helping the jobless and start inflicting pain.
…
More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer.
The Pain Caucus
Paul Krugman
New York Times
May 30, 2010-05-31
AAA


AAA Economic growth no longer results in job creation.

... the link between job creation and economic growth is near the breaking point, because in our Bizarro World economy, growth is becoming more closely linked to job reduction, as The Washington Independent’s Annie Lowrey explained in two simple statistics:

Wondering what’s behind those recent jobless recovery numbers?
1. Fortune 500 companies tripled their profits to $391 billion in 2009.
2. They also slashed their payrolls by more than 800,000 jobs.
The Jobs Deficit & The Breaking Point, Pt. 1
Alternet
Posted by terrancedc at 10:45 am
May 28, 2010