come now, all wants are based on needs. Wants don't come from thin air. There's a reason for them all. Hunger, wish to have more money than the guy next to you, to be better looking than the guy next to you... all benefits. Even "need to survive" is a want. And noone survives forever. You surviving for a longer time on a relative scale is a benefit. Survival is certainly selfish. Unless you're One with All...
It's a general ethics gig, that wants and needs are separate. Need is excused, want is not...
Hm. So in order for people to be free... everyone would have to be less powerful? I haven't thought it through very thoroughly, but it doesn't seem likely that everyone could be free and mutually beneficial, no slaves on whose shoulders to stand, yet achieve high power?
Maybe this is why it is as it is. One guy is poor, the next guy is rich. But the third guy prints them play money for the previous two to use his machines (not just toys, they're often practical toys. Toys which noone could produce and operate without using slaves). This gives the third guy godlike power and keeps the lesser people useful by operating all the useful toys, so the society altogether is stronger?
It's a general ethics gig, that wants and needs are separate. Need is excused, want is not...
Hm. So in order for people to be free... everyone would have to be less powerful? I haven't thought it through very thoroughly, but it doesn't seem likely that everyone could be free and mutually beneficial, no slaves on whose shoulders to stand, yet achieve high power?
Maybe this is why it is as it is. One guy is poor, the next guy is rich. But the third guy prints them play money for the previous two to use his machines (not just toys, they're often practical toys. Toys which noone could produce and operate without using slaves). This gives the third guy godlike power and keeps the lesser people useful by operating all the useful toys, so the society altogether is stronger?