Note on the background of this thread:
I was arguing in the Global Warming thread that if people focused at the solution-level, rather than the cause-level, solutions to global warming could be achieved, and could be justified by issues completely outside the question of global warming, achieving the Democratic ends without relying on the divisive portion of the debate.

In order to prove this, I asked Flint whether he would be in favor of a couple policies, including subsidizing alternative energies and subsidizing the use of agricultural and human waste runoff collection and storage.

Okay, let's go one by one

Energy: You noted that you're fine with an X-Prize type model, yes?  So this portion of the debate is pretty much closed, an X-prize type program for efficient energy development would achieve the goals intended.

That leaves only agricultural runoff.

Now you noted that one ranch was using runoff to help grow their crops.  There's some problems with this in normal farming operations:
1: Normally, modern ranches don't grow their own crops.
2: Cattle that are treated with high levels of antibiotics still have the chemicals in their manure, and have been reported to carry infectious diseases, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains and viruses such as H1N1 and H5N1 flu strains.  Without proper processing (such as through the technologies mentioned above), using this manure for agriculture is HIGHLY dangerous...
3: That method still leaves the methane in the manure to escape.

Well, thanks for shit-canning the "Democrats and Republicans can achieve their individual goals by working together instead of focusing on differences" theory, Flint.  X(

If you want, I'll get into the specifics of the issues when I have time.

Oh... well, then that's easy:

Your example of companies failing to use the technology created is not a question of the technology itself being used.  The original research was still useful, in that some business models succeeded and continued to use the technologies.  The failures you cite are only market concerns, not questions of a lack of demand for the technology created.

hahahahaha! 

Except that funding creation of things is how we ended up with NASA, how Britain came up with synthetic sugars, and how hundreds of other important technologies which would have otherwise not have been created due to lack of demand at the time, were developed.

Correct.  However, I want to make one small reminder:

Remember, this isn't the debate you and I had about specialization of labor from months back.  Since we're talking about historic trends, the debate should thus focus on the evolution of society in the past, not in the future.

Also, I would suggest that you answer the specific nuances within my original post.  There's a reason why I took the time to write what I did. 

Oh, one more slight thing: you mentioned that specialized labor probably isn't considered an institution.  While it could be argued they are such, it's probably most fair to claim they are only a byproduct of the creation of other social institutions you mentioned, and thus a reason why the other institutions thrived.

Correction to Chris:

It isn't that there are 2 ways to amend the Constitution (legitimately).

There's actually 4 ways, as stipulated in the Constitution: Two ways to propose an amendment, and two ways to ratify it.

Proposal:
Two proposal methods.  First, both houses of Congress can call for an amendment.
Second, state legislators can call for an amendment.

Ratification:
Two methods.  First, 3/4 of state legislators can ratify an amendment.
Second, 3/4 of state conventions could ratify an amendment.  (The 21st Amendment was the only one ever ratified by this process)

1: In the world where xeno has historically acknowledged the validity of the law, it applies in his case. 
2: There's justifications for the law.
A: It prevents threads from degenerating into utter flame-wars by cutting off a thread as it's about to cross that critical mass.
B: It identifies and distinguishes those who are debating vs. those who are just flaming.
3: Nice last line. 

> xeno syndicated wrote:

> This notion rests on the assumption that the system evolved according to some Social-Darwinist notion.

Didn't know you were a Nazi, Zarf. 

1: Godwin's Law.  The first person to compare someone to a Nazi or Hitler in a debate loses.  You remember this from a few months ago, yes?  In fact, when I called it on somebody who, at the time was debating against you, you affirmed it and made fun of him for it. 

Oh, and the reason why this is a good thing is shown in your most recent post:

>"I encourage that anyone who would like to see the Politics community restored to a better level of debate stand alongside this ban, until you_fool honestly makes efforts to give amenities for his actions."

Spoken like a true Social Darwinist.  /me claps

Seriously, just insert 'Germany' for 'Politics community' and 'righteousness' for 'debate' and 'the Jew' for 'you_fool' and it's similarity to something Hitler might have said in a speech is uncanny!<

Okay, so in other words, the following is Social Darwinist/Nazi:

I encourage that anyone who would like to see ____________ restored to a better level of _______ stand alongside this ban, until _______ honestly makes efforts to give amenities for his actions.

So anyone who wants to improve something, and/or see someone make amends for a transgression is a Nazi?  Is that seriously your argument?  Or do you assume I said those nouns which you inserted in my sentence?

Oh, I've got an idea!  I'll do the exact same thing!

xeno syndicated said:
"Other potential causes of poverty include poor government policy decisions, excessive greed of the rich and elites, multinational corporations, the structure of societal institutions, and influential individuals."

Okay, if we replace "rich and elites" with "Jews and [I would get banned for saying it]," that would make you a Nazi, wouldn't it?  Holy shit, that must mean you're a Nazi, doesn't it?  It's amazing what you can do when you change one noun with whatever noun you like!

2: What's your alternate theory to Social Darwinism being the cause of the rise of the city.  Remember, people didn't begin life in cities.  They actually began in more tribal communities, and planted themselves later.  There has to be a reason why humans chose this way of existence, and why it has persevered over the centuries.

3: Seriously, you resorted to personal attacks even before starting to argue with me?  What the hell?  Could you try being even remotely civil and respectful of others?

4: Sure, I'll defend that society evolved according to Social Darwinism, at least at the macro level.  Let's evaluate the key social construct that we're discussing and examine how it developed:

The city.  Why, historically, would people move away from small communities?  Well, let's look at that.  (Remember, we're talking in the context of society's evolution, so we have to look at these questions in the context of ancient cities, not modern ones)

1: Security in the Ancient world
First, let's ask a simple question: What does a nation need, militarily, to ensure its security?  Yes, generally it would be nicer if the nation could just get along with others.  But when cultures completely divorced from your own culture are expanding into your region, it's hard to drop the sword and tell Attila the Hun "Let's get along!"

First, you're going to need people.  Some nice strong men or women (generally, best if men... not trying to be sexist, but in an age where population growth was so important, men are more easily replaced than women, at least biologically).
So we have 20,000 people... now what?  I guess they could wrestle, except the other guys have swords.  So second, you'll need natural resources.  Iron, bronze, timber, oil... all of it!  Plus we'll need supplies, including food and water, to ensure the troops can deploy for extended periods of time.
Now we've got a bunch of resources and a bunch of guys.  The next step is to create the industrial capacity to harness those resources.  We'll need iron smiths to give our soldiers proper weapons and armor.  We'll need a military camp to train our soldiers so they aren't just running around, swinging a sword randomly.  We'll need engineers to create proper defenses within our own community.  And if our soldiers actually go to war, we'll need effective generals to be able to manage battlefield conditions to maximize troop efficiency.

Now let's look at the two different community types.  First, a city:
1: Since a city focuses a large amount of people into a small region, an ancient city could be easily fortified.  With some walls around a city, we could significantly stall invasions, as trying to scale a wall leaves troops in extremely vulnerable positions.
2: A city gives the state communication access to thousands of people with relative ease.  With one or two recruiting stations, you could easily round up a good number of people.
3: Natural resources is the tricky part here.  Generally, cities were built near regions of economic importance.  However, that importance is difference from one city to another.  For example, Constantinople survived largely because it was a major port between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, two major centers of trade.  Natural resources?  Perhaps some, but its major purpose was as a center of trade.

That being said, cities have two potential ways to obtain natural resources needed.  First is through harvesting.  Now we can't really determine how effective the city is in harvesting natural resources, relative to the small community.  The only thing I can note here is the issue of specialization: If a person works on a farm directly surrounding a city, that person doesn't need to take the time out of working on their harvest to fix farming equipment, sew clothes, etc.  He can focus more on tasks in which he excels, reducing potential waste.

In addition, however, cities can obtain resources through networking.  Let's take an example of a trade center that has little, if any, natural resources.  Imagine a city that is only busy because it is located in a key peninsula that allows ships to dock and resupply, and for goods to be shipped to and from the region.  Gibraltar and Singapore are also good examples of this.  Anyway, these cities set up networking connections with other cities through the trade that goes through the city.  Thus, these cities can easily develop secure trade agreements with other cities for needed goods, primarily because they have the capital infrastructure necessary to obtain those resources (shipping
docks, warehouses), and generally become wealthy enough through shipping that they have the money to buy said resources.

Note: This creates a slight issue with my argument which I must stress: I am not here to say that rural communities are 100% dead.  Obviously, societies of all types need a portion of land used for food production.  In fact, the thesis behind my argument rests on the assumption that some people are willing to retain agricultural lifestyles, provided they sell food to cities in exchange for goods and services from those cities.

4: Cities have a natural ability to manufacture goods.  Two reasons.  First, strong trade routes mean that trade cities are easily able to find the cheapest price for resources in order to ensure a constant stream of production, then turn around and sell those goods, using the same trade routes the city already accesses, to sell goods to a huge amount of customers.  Second, the large amount of manpower in a city means that labor-intensive manufacturing processes can be accomplished here.

The result?  If a city was to be conquered in ancient times, armies couldn't just walk into town.  A well fortified city could go into siege mode, lasting for months without imports of food in the hopes that an allied army would save them.  The defender, meanwhile, needed to keep thousands of troops in constant supply in enemy territory for months on end,

Now what about the small agricultural community?

You have a small amount of people spread out over a large land area.  That's bad.
1: Some defenses, such as walls, were unusable.  Sure, the Great Wall of China obviously proves that it is possible to accommodate such large land areas.  But that wall required millions of people to build.  Not saying that protecting a farm area would need that many people, but it would need a good amount of people... probably more than could be spared within a farming community.
2: Where do you recruit soldiers from?  Recruiters have to essentially go door to door now to find soldiers.
3: No specialization of labor=nobody to take up the industrial practices in a community=Very few, or very ineffective swords.

Also, since rural communities are focused in farmland, they are usually unlikely to be near natural resources such as iron or copper.

Issue #2 is economic efficiency.  I already explained the concept of labor specialization in response to You_Fool (before the whole ban issue was discussed, reference those posts).  The only thing left is to apply it to ruralism+urbanism.

In urban societies, you have thousands, if not millions, of people in a relatively small area, able to organize with each other to produce resources.

Let's be 100% honest: everyone has personal weaknesses.  Take me for example.  I have little upper body strength.  I don't know any foreign languages.  If you asked me to paint a picture for you, you would get a stick figure.  I've never built anything that wasn't made out of Legos.  Considering you will probably say I'm an idiot like you've said most times when I try to explain specialization of labor, we can put stupidity as another personal flaw.

In a world where we are living on our own, each person has to take up all the tasks they need to live.  But hell, look at the bunch of flaws I have (and I'm only naming off a few flaws).  I would be terrible with much of the farming I would need to accomplish due to my terrible strength.  I couldn't build my own cabin.  I would even have trouble just going to a nearby river and bringing water to my house.

And what about our strengths?  I don't want to sit here and brag about myself, so for this section, I want to use another example.  Assume Einstein (Albert, not Flint) lived in a world without labor specialization.  He had a gift of being able to understand and imagine highly abstract concepts, allowing him to greatly advance science.  How much more difficult would it be for him to have discovered those achievements if he spent 80% of his working time growing corn instead of running algorithms?

The more people we have in a single community, the more we can explore each individual person and find what that person's strengths (currently done by the education system+other programs at childhood age).  The more we discover the strengths of each individual, the more we can tap into what makes that person special, and find a place where that person can achieve the self actualization they're looking for, rather than forcing everyone to be a farmer.

Honestly, if a person wants to be a farmer, and they're good at that job, the world I describe lets them pursue that goal, and actually encourages them to pursue that goal, as a good farmer is good for society as a whole since it produces additional resources.  A world without urbanization and specialization forces people to pursue those careers which they don't like, and which they are less able to handle, reducing that person's happiness and efficiency.

I approve this message. 

Frankly, the question to ask here: Would the evidence provided above hold up in court as enough evidence to warrant such a conclusion?

Um... probably not...