An idiotic irresponsibly abstract idea that completely ignores even the basics of the economic problem.

Please stop thinking, you can't do it properly, you only end up with logical fallacies and pseudo-science like this ignorant idea.

None of these skanky bar hoes ever went for a man for anything other than the size of his wallet, they just got served by The Gadaffi.

Weren't they hanging people for rape as early as the medieval era? Mostly it was just a token hanging just to satiate the pitchfork wielding villagers but still...

At 9/20/09 01:15 AM, Stoicish wrote: A little game I decided to let everyone play.

Why don't you make this a flash game and invite everyone on bbs to contribute ideas, that would be awesome.

The maths could work like this...
You have 2 diplomats with different skills (player and computer) from different countries with different goals and a treaty. Your diplomat puts effort into various properties of the treaty, the effectiveness of which depends on their skills and the other diplomat does the same. Some properties are like a tug of war, others improve the treaty's effectiveness, for instance if you put one effort point into "expenditure" your country pays only 40% of the total expenses instead of 50% (while the other country pays 60%) and if you put one effort point into "budget" total expenses are reduced by 5%, including the opponent's. If one of the goals of your country is to pay less than 3 million you can use either of these options to achieve your goal, if during the course of negotiation you find that the other diplomat is annoyed by having to pay more you have to put more effort into "budget" so that everyone is happy.

This provides a framework for various properties and skills and things, like the ones you've already mentioned...

Plausibility

Influenced by the pragmatism skill, increases the effectiveness of the treaty once it's put into practice.

Presentability

Influenced by the charisma skill, makes the other diplomat more likely to agree.

Stability

Influenced by the ideology skill, certain countries are unstable and the diplomat needs to expend effort justifying his moves, the higher his/her ideology skill the more stability points he/she can add for one point of effort.

Economy

A diplomat from a poor country cannot afford some expenses, costs must be below a certain level, diplomats with a higher economist skill can reduce expenses.

Democracy

Perhaps better named "human rights", democratic countries expect human rights to be upheld, diplomats with higher ethics skill improve human rights more.

Military

This is like presentability, a combination of a diplomat's intimidation skill and the country's military power increases the chances of the other diplomat accepting treaties not in it's favor.

Public Support

This is represented by the criteria you must fulfil for all these properties of the treaty.

Peace

Not just peace but other treaties, you start off negotiating trade agreements and as you gain skills and cred you negotiate with terrorists and things and work your way up to stopping ww3.

Maybe the last level could be negotiating with an alien race and trying to convince them not to exterminate humanity.

Equality for down's syndrome babies with a life expectancy of a few days. They will make one president.

What we should be doing is pulling our socks up and trying to make our economy more efficient, all these arbitrary do-nothing policies serve to do is warp people's perceptions of what they need and what the economy can support. We need to accept the fact that we need to cut the fat before the economy can start growing again, there is a culture which pities the businesses faced with closing down but there is no thought given to the businesses that will suffer in the future because of the increase in tax for these ignorant measures to prop up these failed businesses.

Black pride is just as dumb as white pride. It's not really widespread anyway, most middle class blacks of blacks over 35 generally agree so anyone who makes a big deal out of this either way is probably a racist.

What's with all these people who think only an extreme ideology is the way forward? People are flawed, not only does this mean all these misty distant utopias are impossible to achieve but also that it is unlikely anyone will ever devise one that takes this into account, no one is ever going to have the answer to all our problems.

A practical political philosophy therefore must take into account the fact that the people using it are fallible and will make mistakes, but this is not enough. Someone who never knows when they are right will err and flip flop constantly as circumstances change, to solve this problem we need to take a look at scientific method which is also based on fallibility, just as a scientist must be willing to listen to new ideas but only accepts them once they have been rigorously tested it should be the same for politics. This is still not enough however, what I have done thus far is exactly the same as all the commies and fascists before me, create a rule book and expect people to follow it, I need to accept the fact that the people I need to make this work aren't going to stick to empty platitudes, they will only stick to what they know.

People are familiar enough with moderation and conservatism, therefore this is the best political philosophy to support.

sorry but you are a zombie now

If there are ever zombie ninja pirates we're pretty much ducked.

Well in theory communism is about free speech and dancing hand in hand with people from all over the world accepting one another's differences. In theory.

I like the realistic zombies, they are much scarier. Like they are still alive but the disease makes them go crazy and happens very slowly so you would see your loved ones get ill and slowly start to rot and go insane, that's a lot scarier than "oh ladidadida I was bitten by a zombie yesterday but nothing happWHOARGAAAAAAHBLEHSLHRKSJG".

They should be made to work in prison factories to pay for themselves.

Punishments are part of the environment, they deter crime.

Say what you want about Stalin, no one can deny that he was awesome, probably more awesome than Hitler. He defeated the Tsars, turned a 3rd world country into a military juggernaut, defeated the nazis and finished it off by becoming a nuclear superpower.

I think utilitarianism is what you're after, basically the outcome of people's outcomes determine whether they did good or evil. The only problem with utilitarianism are the human errors when people try to calculate what is the "greater good", if people are accurate though then they are totally ethical.

For instance a doctor should not be allowed to kill someone even though he may have saved more lives that he has killed because the punishing people for murder maintains a deterant against murder which does more good than letting doctors kill who they want as long as they don't exceed the number of people they saved.

Individualism is generally better than collectivism but collectivism is useful in keeping people together through tough times. In history the only places where progress was made were during times of peace and stability, it doesn't matter if a king or an emperor is in charge and tortures people to keep control it's better than just having a bunch of tribes of clans murder each other and destroy towns every so often so no one has a chance to build ships, universities and factories and things.

At 7/11/09 03:56 PM, majormario wrote: Either that or we should start droping bombs on the heavily populated areas like China, Africa, and India.

Everyone will have nukes by that time, countries with population controls will probably just not allow immigration from countries without them.

At 7/11/09 04:32 PM, RelicKylias wrote: Obliviously we shouldn't start executing people.

I don't think it will get to that point, more likely the ppp per capita across the globe will slowly decrease and one by one countries will implement population controls and shut their borders to end the encroaching poverty.

At 7/11/09 11:30 PM, All-American-Badass wrote: If that happens I'm getting a diesel truck and converting it into biodiesel.

Biodiesel is a lot more expensive, you probably won't be able to afford to run it unless you do something economically productive with it.

At 7/16/09 08:55 PM, nehemiah135 wrote: by the time we run out of oil we will have other ways of transportation and fuel.

There is helium-3 on the moon and uranium but no oil because no trees or plankton have grown on the moon.

At 7/17/09 01:14 AM, SolInvictus wrote: given that we have food production surplus and mass waste, i don't see how population is the problem with the world.

Population can't grow forever so overpopulation will happen eventually. The countries that are starving now are regionally overpopulated and depend on foreign imports even though they have nothing to trade in return, yet their populations continue to grow. That's not sensible, either we wait until we're overpopulated and can't give food to them anymore or we stop doing so now so they learn not to have kids they can't support.

At 7/16/09 08:55 PM, nehemiah135 wrote:

I assume that with fuel with the end of oil, things like ethanol will simply become mandatory and scientists will focus every bit of their work on perfecting it so I have faith in them.

Ethanol comes from sugar cane and corn, we will have to face a choice between a huge population where everyone lives like medieval peasants or a low population where people can afford to use agriculture to fuel their cars and enjoy a high standard of living.

I don't know about you guys but I always find it funny when conservatives bash liberals but it's kind of dry and lame when liberals try to bash conservatives, it always seems to be the same old thing "lol ur a hick" "bush is chimp, wow im so fresh and original".

The BNP aren't important, they just make a lot of noise they are like the 13 year old trolls here but IRL. If things do go terribly wrong in thew future and there is a fascist/socialist revolution you can be sure the BNP won't be at the forefront.

At 7/8/09 03:52 AM, Leidolfr wrote: i wonder what that other monkeys thinking right now. maybe in the future, especially if we die, they wil take our place.

They will have to stop eating their poo first I guess.

WE SMART, WE CAN TALK, OMG THAT'S WHY CHIMPS CAN'T USE TYPEWRITERS ZOMGZZ!!

i put water on my frosties

America is about freedom, so flag burning should only increase it's prestige.

salt makes you dehydrated and feel like someone's just pooped in your mouth

cancer sux

Option A plz.

Market forces will take their course, Chinese will get richer, Chinese workers will demand more moneys, Chinese products will get more expensive, manufacturing in the US will compete again. The only difference will be that everyone is better off and all this means to me is that I must take business studies and learn how to invest in China's growing economy in the future instead of becoming a factory laborer (oh noez).

At 6/28/09 05:47 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: Oil will cost a shitload of money, and people will substitute it for other fuels...

what's ordinary? Me and you chatting over teh interwebs? You living in your 1st world country? Meh.

Do not underestimate the power of the price system.

Some countries will control overpopulation so they can use their agriculture for biofuels and have a decent standard of living but more backwards countries will continue to breed unrestricted until all the land has to be used to feed people and next time there is a drought people starve. At this point the countries which are not overpopulated will either have to let immigrants in from these countries and become overpopulated themselves or say "F U, you brought this on yourselves, we don't owe you anything". Things could get ugly.
I don't see how the price system will work because we need oil to get into space and it will be extremely expensive like you say.

At 6/28/09 06:06 PM, KidneyThief wrote: In my personal opinion, I think it would make more sense to start tunneling underground and create residential districts there as opposed to flying out into outer space and living in zero G and a boring (albeit a visually stunning) environment....

I think people will live on earth but send people or robots underground, underwater or into space. If there is one technology that is advancing rapidly it is electronics, computers and software.

At 6/30/09 12:59 PM, HecticCircleCrap wrote: "I'm going solar, motherfucker" is my plan for when this happens.

You will have to live in a desert or something.

At 6/30/09 02:53 PM, Ericho wrote: We'll just have to go back to religion giving us comfort. Ha ha.

Probably the overpopulated areas will revert to a renaissance level of technology and there will be religious wars and crusades. Apart from the low standard of living those areas will be pretty awesome with crusades, ninjas and pirates and things.

sorry i didn't reply, I had to go and in fact I have to go again in like a minute xD

I will provide you with an intellectually stimulating debate soon

brbness..

What's wrong with evil corporations? Why don't you join one instead of whining and crying about them?