what is the goal of society? Is it to make everyone happy? Is it to increace freedom to the max? To maintain order and stability? To ensure prosperity? I think that this is the big decision that we have to make, then we can decide on everything else.

Note: Freedom increased to the max goes by the name Anarchy.

well, that's what I'm asking. Do we want anarchhy? if not, what should the goal of goverment be? how much power should it have. These are the basic questions.

The goal of government cannot be anarchy, as that would be a contradiction.

Fairness?

my own opinion is that the goal of society should be to foster conditions where the goals of individuals can be best be achieved... so what are the goals of the individual?

i think at the very core is the need to survive... beyond this is the need to survive "well"... in other words, to achieve a sense of self-esteem, security, and justice... to have a sense of well-being, and satisfaction in one's own endeavours, and in the locale where one survives...

as long as society fosters these conditions for each individual, i think it is achieving its goals... however, for society to do this, each individual must accept their social responsibility...

so you're saying that we don't choose one, but let the members of society choose themselves, andhelp them along on their way?

I agree completely.

When you "design" a society without clearly defined goals, you get what we already have.

exactly. I say this is the defining feature of the CSCS- we have something that we are aiming towards, a goal, a reason etc. We will have a purpose, while everyone else flounders around to no effect.

The goal of the society should be-

Hmm. That's difficult.

I say that the goal of society should be to create a true meritocracy- to get as close as possible to energy in=money/rewards out.

What place do the very young, the elderly, the seriously disabled, or the mentally impaired have in your "meritocracy"?

Well, first of all, I would like to point out that I am most certainly not one of the 'let them die' righties, so don't think I am. Live and let live is fine with me, but live and let die is just unacceptable.

Perhaps it should be 'work in as a percentage of capacity', although that would be a nightmare to even try to institute.

It's an ideal. I don't think anyone can honestly say that rewards being a function of how hard you work is a bad concept.

Maybe measuring input in joules, so that the mentally disabled could do physical labor, and reap the same reward as someone working as hard at more intellectual pursuits. The elderly or seriously disabled could work on intellectual tasks, and children will be in school. Perhaps rewards for work there should be ade integral as well, somehow, although I don't know how.

I don't think anyone will argue against the idea that "work deserves rewards".

But surely an enlightened and successful society would generate enough excess capacity to support everyone willing to "pitch in" as they can.

well I'm saying that everyone should get out what they put in- and be they mentally disabled or not, they can work just as hard as anyone, if given proper instruction.

With industry and automation, a society can produce more than what its people "put in".

yes, that is true. But you only get paid for what you contribute. If a machine does it, why should you reap the reward?

What if I built the machine?

Actually, I was hinting at collective industry. As an example, it takes workers and machines to build cars.

If you built the machine, you would get payed based on the amount of energy you put into building it.

And machines don't get paid. The workers get payed based on E in.

But then you end up with a situation where the energy that is being paid for is less than the energy coming out.

As Tom Kalfbus said, "when we have good enough robots we can let them do all the work". We're very near that stage, indeed, food production and clothes manufacturing (to use two examples) are almost all automated already. It won't be that hard to push them over into full automation. In that case, the government would be able to own it and simply give out 'free' clothes and food, using taxes to buy in the raw materials. Perhaps people could use their 'energy allowance' to buy them.

I can tell you what the goal shouldn't be: make everyone happy. The easiest way to make someone happy is to drug them out of their mind, but it isn't much of an existence.

I agree with most of what you said. I still think people should be paid based on E in. A thing to remember, though, is that there are two broad types of labor: construction, building physical objects, and intellectual, labor which requires thought. Any system should incorporate both.

Ah, but then you get into difficulty with ability and computing E. For example, if I was being paid for my Art (stories), I wouldn't be putting much effort in, because I find it easy. However, someone else would find it harder to do the same quality. That, therefore, makes their achievement greater than mine, and they've put in more E than me.

well, theoretically some way to measure metabolic rate would be used, perhaps by monitoring blood sugar, or carbon dioxide, or something of that nature.

But that only works for physical labor. Plus it's possible to cheat.

Soory, the idea just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It's good in theory, but it's almost impossibleto calculate E.

I say it could work, if an implant was used that could accurately measure metabolic rate. And yes, you would need to check in/out accurately. This would be illegal, though, and with large penalties.

But my metabolic rate doesn't increase when I'm doing mental labor, only physical labor. And if you pay people based on effort, there's no incentive to improve.

And that doesn't touch on the basic question - "who pays?"

Well, actually, thinking does use energy. How much, I don't know.

And this currency is energy backed- IOW, it is payed for by itself.

Who pays? ie. who is employing people?

people post jobs that need to be done on some sort of job market. One can choose whichever job one feels they can work the most at or will enjoy the most. Perhaps you need to pay for a posting, so as not to have people putting up frivolous and useless things.

Then you end up with everyone applying for certain jobs, and no-one applying for others. So long as there is a pay differential, though, the economy will still work.

Make people get a job after becoming unemployed, and give them a week to choose. That way, we can minimize how much money they require to keep them going.

I'm not totally sure how well this one would work, but ideally, paying people proportionally to E in is the best. This is the CS, after all. Even if it's not workable, though, we should include some elements of this into our chosen economy.

What should be the goal? To quote myself from the Abortion thread:

I wrote:

I have two simple rules: 1) Don't do anything that has a too much of a negative effect on someone, and 2) Be who you want to be, except when it conflicts with the first law. I'll probably right in a third law, and find someway of of clarifying the 1st law, but it'll do for now. I can then deduce all other laws from those.

Now, in effect the 1st law is to protect the 2nd, but also limits the second law. I'll do some more thinking on the 1st law, to clarify what precisely I mean. Claiming that you are hurt emotionally by what your friend/child/etc wants to be, so therefore they can't do it as it would conflict with the first law. If that friend/child/etc decided to become a morally degenerate sadomasochistic woman beater, however, then that *would* be a case of conflict with the first law. Tricky cases include

• Gay adoption - effects on the child
  
• Divorce - again, effects on the children
  
• Sadomasochists - if they want to be whipped and beaten themselves
  
• Etc - I trust you get the idea now
  

The goal of society should be to implement those two laws (three if I can come up with another one, perhaps to regulate the expression of them enough to make it [near] failsafe).

well, those seem they would be more like the bill of rights in the USA, although I suppose it could work if sent strait to the judicial. Then congress (See my post in the location thread) would spend it's time only on programs, of which I approve.