| Author |
Topic:
Free Trade vs Protectionism
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dizfactor
Registered:
Aug '02
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Date Posted:
7/27/07 10:04am
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
- Date Edited:
7/27/07 10:08am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
dizfactor
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Espaldapalabras posted:
Of course the numbers of children are going down in rich nations, I just don't think it can be tied to any evolutionary cause designed to keep your genes going.
All human behavior (all organic behavior period) is an expression of the evolutionary drive. Everything we do, everything we are.
Espaldapalabras posted:
while yes many species have fewer children so they can better take care of them, usually they do so when they lack the resources or energy to have many, not when they have so much resources they decide they only need a few.
You have that completely backwards. There's a spectrum between r-selected reproductive strategies, where you go for numbers, and K-selected reproduction strategies, where you have few offspring and invest more resources in each individual offspring. K-selected strategies predominate in organisms that have long lifespans living in environments where they have a steady, reliable food supply. The shorter the lifespan, the more erratic the food supply, the more advantageous it is to go for an r-selected strategy.
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DeathStar1977
Registered:
Jan '03
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Date Posted:
7/27/07 10:32am
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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The Case For Trade
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/opinion/27fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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Espaldapalabras
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
7/27/07 12:29pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Everything we do is an expression of evolutionary drive?
That is perhaps the bleakest view of humanity I have ever heard. Unlike Futurama, I don't believe all human endeavor is just a way to impress girls.
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dizfactor
Registered:
Aug '02
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Date Posted:
7/27/07 1:04pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Espaldapalabras posted:
Everything we do is an expression of evolutionary drive?
That is perhaps the bleakest view of humanity I have ever heard. Unlike Futurama, I don't believe all human endeavor is just a way to impress girls.
It's just the way it is. I don't see what's so bleak about that, but it's unfortunate that you seem to have attached your sense of meaning and happiness to something which doesn't happen to be true.
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Espaldapalabras
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
7/28/07 2:26pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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I just think that is an excuse to act however you want to. If all human behavior is just our desire to keep our genes going, then there can be no right or wrong choices. If what you say is true, then prohibitions against genocide should take their place alongside prohibiitons against extra-marital sex. Oh you might argue that nobody is getting hurt in loose sexual situations, but in the end since both are just manifestations of the same evolutionary drive, putting limits on either is simply trying to protect your own genes, which is exactly what those committing genocide are trying to do.
This is the moral bankruptcy of ascribing all choices to a single causal factor. If everything has the same cause, then any choice is morally equivalent, regardless of its effect on yourself or others. And I fail to see how drugs or entertainment or a desire to never have children because you want to not have the burden of doing so have anything to do with some evolutionary drive.
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dizfactor
Registered:
Aug '02
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Date Posted:
7/30/07 1:55pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Espaldapalabras posted:
I just think that is an excuse to act however you want to. If all human behavior is just our desire to keep our genes going, then there can be no right or wrong choices.
Funnily enough, I don't choose my beliefs based on how effective they will be in terms of restricting other people's behavior.
I find it deeply disturbing on a lot of levels to see so many people start with the idea that they want to keep people under control, and then sort of reverse engineer themselves a paradigm that will justify the base desire for control. First of all, that's creepily paternalistic and authoritarian. Second, it's intellectually dishonest. Third, it really doesn't say much for your opinion of human nature. Assuming that people, when left to their own devices, immediately revert to a sort of cartoonish savagery* is far more bleak than anything I'm saying, and is just a really astonishingly pessimistic
It also ignores the simple reality that humanity is already effectively on its own, in a fundamentally amoral universe, guided only by evolutionary imperatives, and, you know, we do OK for the most part. Humanity, overall, though frustratingly stupid at times, is overall a pretty nice bunch and we do pretty well for ourselves. Most people, most of the time, are basically good, fundamentally decent and well-meaning, and they get that way through simple, everyday human interaction.
Espaldapalabras posted:
If what you say is true, then prohibitions against genocide should take their place alongside prohibiitons against extra-marital sex. Oh you might argue that nobody is getting hurt in loose sexual situations, but in the end since both are just manifestations of the same evolutionary drive, putting limits on either is simply trying to protect your own genes, which is exactly what those committing genocide are trying to do.
Yes, but that's because they don't understand genetics. First of all, human genetic diversity is extremely low. You share more genes with any person picked up off the street anywhere on the planet than most siblings from other species share with each other. Further reductions are inadvisable, and preserving the human species as a whole does a pretty darn good job of ensuring the survivability of your genes.
Second, race essentially does not exist on a genetic level. It's a statistically insignificant portion of what genetic diversity we do have.
Third, there are material advantages (among other advantages) to genetic and memetic diversity.
Espaldapalabras posted:
This is the moral bankruptcy of ascribing all choices to a single causal factor. If everything has the same cause, then any choice is morally equivalent, regardless of its effect on yourself or others.
Every moral paradigm is already equivalent whether we want that to be true or not. However, the moral paradigm of the early-21st century proponent of an open society provides the best standard of living for the most people and syncs up best with evolutionary drives.
There's no reason any has to embrace my paradigm, and, ultimately, whether or not someone does means nothing. However, it's a very helpful paradigm with a lot of attractive selling points.
Espaldapalabras posted:
And I fail to see how drugs or entertainment or a desire to never have children because you want to not have the burden of doing so have anything to do with some evolutionary drive.
Getting into the specifics of how those work into evolutionary drives would require more space than we have here.
* Which, really, has little or nothing to do with the actual behavior of pre-agricultural "savages," who very frequently display quite a bit of communal and altruistic behavior.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
9/13/07 3:06pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Free trade and fireballs
 at Barack "Mr Populist" Obama, John "I'm a populist too!" Edwards and Hillary "What? Oh yes, include me" Clinton.
E_S
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Darth Mischievous
Registered:
Oct '99
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 12:37pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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The End of Globalization?
Thoughts?
It should be a major issue in '08 and for the next President, as unrestricted free trade is becoming ever increasingly unpopular in the United States....
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 1:33pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
- Date Edited:
12/13/07 1:34pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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Somehow I doubt globalization can be repealed by a mere political movement. Legislating our way out of a trade deficit would be quite a task.
What could do it, however, is resource nationalism brought about by extreme commodity scarcity. $200 oil. Economic and military warfare over things like coal and copper exports and access to natural gas and potable water. These things could undo globalization.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 5:09pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Well the article is also inherently wrong.
The "growing skepticism" is more accurately described as "growing ignorance fueled by fear".
The main concern is that China is stealing American jobs through free trade.
This shows a stunning, amazing ignorance of the nature of trade and of US economic history.
The jobs that China could have possibly stolen were outsourced to Mexico. The ones that are leaving the US are more likely to go to India which replicates the US' service economy, only more cheaply.
Politicians capitalise on this fear and ignorance to adopt some hefty China bashing comments which are, again, based on fear and ignorance.
Most of the leading "pundits" are making their analysis based on visceral reactions and zero research. I am thinking of your mate Mr Buchanan in particular.
That is not to say globalisation or free trade are not, like anything, double edged swords in their pro/con ratios. Not at all. Rather, it says that any critique of the two needs to come from informed research.
The current concerns in the US have nothing to do with the benefits or sacrifices globalisation yields. It's economic nationalism.
E_S
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ShaneP
Registered:
Mar '01
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 5:31pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
- Date Edited:
12/13/07 5:32pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
ShaneP
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The jobs that China could have possibly stolen were outsourced to Mexico
That is correct. If anything, the rise of trade with China has ushered in the end, or at least diminished the prospects, of NAFTA.
They're building a massive port in Alaska to bring goods in from China for transport across No. America.
Apparently, this port will be dwarfed by a larger one being built in Mexico to import goods in from China, which will then be transported across the states.
The original vision and promise of NAFTA is giving way to this new reality.
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Darth Mischievous
Registered:
Oct '99
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 5:46pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Ender_Sai posted:
That is not to say globalisation or free trade are not, like anything, double edged swords in their pro/con ratios. Not at all. Rather, it says that any critique of the two needs to come from informed research.
The current concerns in the US have nothing to do with the benefits or sacrifices globalisation yields. It's economic nationalism.
E_S
What of the concerns of the huge trade imbalance and the ever-shrinking manufacturing base within the United States? States like Ohio and Pennsylvania, for example, where the plants have closed up?
Your point is noted concerning outsourcing to Mexico. Also, I'm sick of speaking to incomprehensible Indians with grammar school level English skills on the phone when trying to get tech support for companies like Dell, for example.
True, globalization has been a hallmark of US economic policy since FDR all the way through Clinton and Bush.... We do have full employment generally as well.
National concerns shouldn't be simply dismissed, though. Should I not support subsidization of American farmers because a farmer in Africa can't sell his product here more cheaply and basically drive the American farmer out of business? I would rather pay $1 more for the domestic product, just as I don't mind paying around $4 for a grande cappucino from Starbucks to pay for the employees' provided benefits... My concerns are indeed related to national self-interests, what is best for this country, not Australia, China, or otherwise.
As you can see from the article since NAFTA was implimented, free trade has substantially increased the imbalance.
Asia has benefited from globalization, and we are in a losing situation. As Samuelson stated in the article, the consequences of globalization 'have been negative for some time now'. We're losing our industrial power.
Also, because I quoted a previous source on occasion that you obviously disagree with (e.g., Buchanan) doesn't imply that I parrot everything from only one given source as you seem opt to do (e.g., the Economist) and then pigeonhole others to a single source. Buchanan, a protectionist yes, had no mention in my above post. The author is German.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 5:50pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
- Date Edited:
12/13/07 5:56pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Ender_Sai
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Dm you have an unrivalled capacity to only see the tree, damn everything else, as you stand in the forest. 
For starters, and your pithy racism aside, Indian English may be accented but they speak proper English as an official language from youth and are unlikely to use such crass terms as "ain't" or "no more".
Secondly, Buchanan, the author of your german piece, et al don't get globalisation. So they're rallying against their own insecurities more than anything else. Read Dr Jagdesh Bagwati and then get back to me. Agree or not, at least he knows his stuff.
ES
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Darth Mischievous
Registered:
Oct '99
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 5:51pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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Ender_Sai posted:
Dm you have an unrivalled capacity to only see the tree, damn everything else, as you stand in the forest.
ES
Are we discussing the issue at hand, or are we discussing me personally?
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
12/13/07 5:57pm
Subject:
RE: Free Trade vs Protectionism
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If you can't objectively view the issues, then how can we discuss the issues? 
E_S
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