Abortions

[Dimentio]

The discussion over abortions on NET;s website (http://en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=63&func=view&id=1484&catid=10)

Since abortions is such an important topic here, I thought that I would put my own five joules into the discussion. I would be honest and say that the link is to a discussion where we are investigating the subject, and that NET holds no official policy over the subject as of yet.

My own position is that I do not believe that the foetus has any inherent rights, and that the woman has the sole authority to determine whether she wants to carry out the pregnancy. As said, I believe that the choice of abortion should be available. Even if one indeed was pro-life from a moral stand, it would'nt matter since illegalisation of abortions instead would mean illegal, hazardous abortions.

But, we must recognise that too many abortions on a society on a macro-economic scale possess a danger to the well-being of the society, since that would lead to an increasin group of elder people who due to technology would live longer and longer lives. When over 50% of the working population has passed retirement age, we would begin to see serious problems in our standard of life.

In Sweden, about 30.000 of the 90.000 yearly pregnancies end in abortion. That is a sweeping third of the pregnancies. That would constitute a diminishing population curve if it weren't for 60.000 immigrants each year.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, the society has an objective interest for the quality of life of it's citizens to emphasize that there are alternatives to abortions, to the extent that we may chose to start social programmes which are helping couples or women to chose to not abort the child.

The question is, would that be an infingement upon the autonomy of the female?

[bezdomni]

Test tube babies.

[Leo]

I think this thread belongs to Sciences and Environment so I'm moving it. If anyone has any objections, please send me a pm.

[Dimentio]

I cannot see anything that has to do with either science or environment on this thread. It is clearly about politics.

[la-troy]

I stated this before but everyone was trying to make it seem as if i was suggesting punishing people for their actions. i say abortion raises a bigger worry than right to choose or pro life questions. they often come from unplanned pregnancies outside of marriages and blah blah blah. these individuals are obviously not practicing the use of contraceptives in most cases and their is a increased risk of getting sexual diseases. I think it is a waste of time to debate about the after fact but to push for safer sex practices.

[Dimentio]

It is not safer sex practices that are the problem in my view (in this thread), but the population pyramid. If we get too few children, we will soon break our own economy when we have too many old people.

[la-troy]

I understand what you are saying for developed countries that issue can become a real problem. shortages of workers and what not. but there is also a negative effect for underdeveloped or developing countries, Brain drain. These developing countries will go out looking for qualified workers and end up taking the smartest and the best from these poorer countries who cannot compete regarding wages. so I guess this relates to your point about Sweden's low birth rate being nullified by immigration. but while it may take a while for Sweden to really feel this a lot of poorer countries are feeling it.
Encouraging these expectants mothers to not have an abortion is tricky I think. I mean look at it a lot of people have a real problem with carrying out the pregnancy (I am taking it that a country like Sweden has enough social programs to help care for the child when it is born) so you have to look at it from that way. And then u have to consider the cost to care for these children wholly and completely by the state.

but I do not thinking u are infringing on their rights in that manner. u are just explaining to them the question of abortion from a different perspective. I presume the decision will be left up to them so not a problem there.

Edit: my first post was something on my chest that i had to get off. was not trying to derail your topic.

[anarchista feminista]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 07:19 am
I cannot see anything that has to do with either science or environment on this thread. It is clearly about politics.
Many topics relate to more than one forum. However I do see this as a scientific debate as well as political. I can see what you mean; this isn't just the pro-life v. pro-choice debate. What you are saying is that abortion can have negative impacts on society.

I personally am pro-choice. I just think this is a very complicated topic and hard to define the answer.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by anarchy_oi+June 17, 2007 11:07 pm--> (anarchy_oi @ June 17, 2007 11:07 pm)
[email protected] 18, 2007 07:19 am
I cannot see anything that has to do with either science or environment on this thread. It is clearly about politics.
Many topics relate to more than one forum. However I do see this as a scientific debate as well as political. I can see what you mean; this isn't just the pro-life v. pro-choice debate. What you are saying is that abortion can have negative impacts on society.

I personally am pro-choice. I just think this is a very complicated topic and hard to define the answer. [/b]
Most immigrants in Sweden are actually Swedish citizens who moves back to Sweden, while the non-European immigration is a small margin. Moreover, most immigrants fail to acquire the same profession in Sweden as in their own countries. We have doctors who works as pizzeria owners or cleaners.

I would like to adress the issue of population control, i.e how to - excluding of course immigration, which nevertheless would take place - ensure a balanced population development of about 2.1 children per female on the total level (needed to ensure a population balance in ages), in a post-capitalist society.

[Sentinel]

I don't think any possible social or scientific 'complications', or least of all the situation on the capitalist labor market -- well anything -- can ever outweigh the fact that the abortion discussion is a human rights one, and that unconditional support for womens autonomy on the issue is the only acceptable revolutionary leftist position -- regardless of circumstances.

Sciences & Environment is indeed not the optimal forum of choice for this topic, and as we have heard until boredom the anti-choice arguments in OI lately, I'm moving it to Discrimination for now.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:45 pm
I don't think any possible social or scientific 'complications', or least of all the situation on the capitalist labor market -- well anything -- can ever outweigh the fact that the abortion discussion is a human rights one, and that unconditional support for womens autonomy on the issue is the only acceptable revolutionary leftist position -- regardless of circumstances.

This is indeed not the optimal forum of choice for this topic, and as we have heard until boredom the anti-choice arguments in OI lately, I'm moving it to Discrimination for now.
This is not about anti-choice, but a widening of the subject. One does not need to be anti-choice to look at a widely used right for abortion as a potential demographic problem.

[Sentinel]

Originally posted by Serpent+June 18, 2007 12:47 am--> (Serpent @ June 18, 2007 12:47 am)
[email protected] 17, 2007 11:45 pm
I don't think any possible social or scientific 'complications', or least of all the situation on the capitalist labor market -- well anything -- can ever outweigh the fact that the abortion discussion is a human rights one, and that unconditional support for womens autonomy on the issue is the only acceptable revolutionary leftist position -- regardless of circumstances.

This is indeed not the optimal forum of choice for this topic, and as we have heard until boredom the anti-choice arguments in OI lately, I'm moving it to Discrimination for now.
This is not about anti-choice, but a widening of the subject. One does not need to be anti-choice to look at a widely used right for abortion as a potential demographic problem.[/b]
That's why I didn't move it into OI. But I don't quite see your point here -- 'shortage' of workers is traditionally a concern of employers and bourgeois politicians -- remember Göran Persson constantly 'expressing his concern' about low birth rates? But should we really start running out of people here, I'd definitely support encouraging adoption as well as recruiting of immigrants before encouraging (pressuring?) people into having unwanted children. Let's also not forget that rewarding people for having children easily turns into penalising those who don't -- that has been the case in many a society such as ancient Rome.

[Dimentio]

Immigration or adoption won't work for all eternity, due to the fact that those societies which lies external to ours have their own prosperity to look at.

[TC]

This thread makes incorrect economic assumptions. In a well managed socialist economy there is no problem with a declining population.

Capitalism needs an expanding, or at least stable population for economic health because of the problem of the declining rate of profit. When more capital is invested with a smaller number of workers, the ratio of productive or 'living' capital to total capital declines, and this results in less surplus value which results in less profit, the only way to avoid this is by increasing the workforce thereby increasing the rate of production and surplus value. But this is not a general economic rule but a rule characterized by economies reliant on exploitation of labour.

This problem is also exaggerated by the fact that most capitalist societies live vastly beyond their means because they take out a huge amount of foreign debt which then needs to be supported by the same or greater level of absolute production rather than per capita production in future generations.


But because socialism relies on neither exploited labour or debt, it doesn't have this problem and the only concern is production per capita not absolute production, in fact having more people on the same level of resources just tends to decrease the standard of living if there is roughly even distribution.

People retiring pose no problem because their generation contributed enough for their retirement. Again the problem only occurs when you have debt.


Consider Cuba as a case study. They have a life expectancy of 77 years, but a fertility rate of only 1.6 per person, where 2.1 is replacement level, and they also have a negative migration rate, so each generation will have fewer people than the one before. This doesn't worry anyone however, the way it would freak people out in a capitalist state, because they aren't paying for people's retirement on massive debt.




But, we must recognise that too many abortions on a society on a macro-economic scale possess a danger to the well-being of the society, since that would lead to an increasin group of elder people who due to technology would live longer and longer lives. When over 50% of the working population has passed retirement age, we would begin to see serious problems in our standard of life.

As long as the economy was scaled correctly there would be no problems. Its only in an economy of excess where things are subsidized through debt where you would see problems, so this is an issue unique to late capitalism.


In Sweden, about 30.000 of the 90.000 yearly pregnancies end in abortion. That is a sweeping third of the pregnancies. That would constitute a diminishing population curve if it weren't for 60.000 immigrants each year.


Theres absolutely nothing wrong with a diminishing population. The point is not to fit the most people on the planet, or even keep a stable number.


From a purely pragmatic point of view, the society has an objective interest for the quality of life of it's citizens to emphasize that there are alternatives to abortions, to the extent that we may chose to start social programmes which are helping couples or women to chose to not abort the child.

The only people that benefits are capitalists who need a stable workforce. Workers don't benefit at all from an enlarged working class.

Absolute (rather than per capita) production only matters when it comes to surplus value, not production per capita, and while capitalists benefit from surplus value, workers do not.


To explain this, take this model:

A worker needs to consume 10 widgets to live, and is capable of producing 100 widgets a day.

If 10 workers are organized in a socialist factory, then they produce 1000 widgets in a day which are divided among them evenly, so they each get 100 widgets. If the factory loses 5 workers, than they produce 500 widgets a day, and they each get 100 widgets, so it makes no difference to their standard of living whether there are 10 workers or 5 workers since less production is divided fewer ways.

But, if 10 workers are organized in a capitalist factory, then they also produce 1000 widgets in a day, but the capitalists only pays them each 10 widgets, so at the end of the day, each worker has 10 widgets and the capitalist has 900 widgets. The difference between the number of widgets the capitalist needs to pay the workers and the number they produce is the surplus value. If 5 workers quit and cannot be replaced, however, than at the end of the day the workers produce 500 widgets, the capitalist takes them and pays each worker 10 widgets, and the capitalist only keeps 450 widgets. So, while the workers receive the same compensation whether there are ten of them or five of them, the capitalist receives much less profit if there are five of them then if there are ten of them.

So, you can see from this extremely simple model that population decline poses unique problems to capitalism that it doesn't pose to socialism, and that population stability is in the interest of the ruling class but not in the interests of the people.






The question is, would that be an infingement upon the autonomy of the female?


Of course it would, what are you stupid?

[Dimentio]

If only socialism in itself is the goal, I understand those sentiments. But there are some things which socialism should provide apart from itself, namely a high standard of life on the basis of equal opportunities for everyone. And yes, I am aware of the debt problem, and believe me, as a technocrat, I have even less to worry on that point. The reason for my worry is that we would have an unmanageable class of elders who will need explicit care.

This is not about production, but for the fact that resources in a closed system, whether socialist or technocrat, must be diverted from the productive forces. Surely, we could increase our efficiency by automatisation, but we cannot save capacity. It must be utilised, and if we have a reduction of our competence pool of laborers, as well as increased demands on workers in elder care, we will start running into problems.

Moreover, any system needs a functioning defense.

[TC]

If only socialism in itself is the goal, I understand those sentiments. But there are some things which socialism should provide apart from itself, namely a high standard of life on the basis of equal opportunities for everyone.

And theres no reason why you can't do that even with a declining population, except under capitalism.

Absolute production of capital is directly proportional to the number of productive workers...when workers work for themselves, their standard of living is then going to remain unchanged because the portions in which the total capital are divided are directly proportional to the population size. Having more workers only changes the standard of living of social parasites who live off of surplus value.


The reason for my worry is that we would have an unmanageable class of elders who will need explicit care.

In a well planned economy, people who are retired aren't parasites on people who work, the way you seem to imagine (and the way that it tends to work in badly managed economies), they are rather supported by the resources that they produced while they were in the labour force. As long as each generation works for long enough to support both itself while its working and itself while its not working, meaning that it produces enough above its minimum daily requirements to have enough to retire on, there is no reason why elderly populations should be any burden on society even if they're larger than younger populations.

The problem only occurs when you play with their social security in the stock market!



This is not about production, but for the fact that resources in a closed system, whether socialist or technocrat, must be diverted from the productive forces. Surely, we could increase our efficiency by automatisation, but we cannot save capacity. It must be utilised, and if we have a reduction of our competence pool of laborers, as well as increased demands on workers in elder care, we will start running into problems.

Err, no, we wont, what you just said makes very little sense, please re-read my post and stop assuming the logic of a profit based debt economy.

Your writing seems really confused.

[Dimentio]

Resources tend to be consumed within a very short time-span, and must be renewed by new generations. I am not following any discussions about debt, but I am talking about a non-price system economy.

Moreover, as earlier said, we need a defense and we need social care. When we are talking about societies, we must think utilitarian and long-term.

[Clarksist]

I am 100% pro-choice. A collection of cells which has no cognitive functions hardly qualifies as a human. On top of that, as long as the life form depends on the mother giving up vital nutrients, its the mother's decision to flush it away or not.

And besides, does any thinking person still even think about if abortion should be legal or not? I challenge anyone who is pro-life to be able to prove themselves sentient.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 03:15 am
I am 100% pro-choice. A collection of cells which has no cognitive functions hardly qualifies as a human. On top of that, as long as the life form depends on the mother giving up vital nutrients, its the mother's decision to flush it away or not.

And besides, does any thinking person still even think about if abortion should be legal or not? I challenge anyone who is pro-life to be able to prove themselves sentient.
This debate is not about pro-choice or pro-life. It is about effects that abortions could have on society on a large-scale.

[TC]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 01:42 am
Resources tend to be consumed within a very short time-span, and must be renewed by new generations. I am not following any discussions about debt, but I am talking about a non-price system economy.

Thats not the way the economy really works in any system whether capitalist or socialist.

Commodities do not merely have a use value as you're describing, they also have an exchange value. People who don't actually make consumable resources like food or steel make things that can be exchange for currency or credits or shares in the collectivized economy which can then be exchanged for consumable goods. This is true whether you have a capitalist economy, a socialist economy or a communist economy.

The concept of being able to retire hinges on ones ability to produce enough capital in excess of what needs to be exchanged for someones current living requirements that the extra capital has an exchange value sufficient for supporting them for years when they aren't working, and this is the case in both a capitalist and socialist model (the difference being the manner in which someone contributes to the economy and the manner in which they're supported). If there is an economy of such scarcity that people can't produce that much above their basic requirements, then people simply would not be able to retire. Thats not really such a shockingly bad thing, if you consider that providing for people's retirement is lower on a societies list of priorities than ensuring that people who work aren't starving to death, which would be the affect of people being able to add no more to the economy than they need to survive (which is a rather extreme scenario hardly ever seen in industrialized countries). In any case thats still an issue of production per capita not total production so your argument is still empirically invalid...except in a debt society.



Moreover, as earlier said, we need a defense and we need social care. When we are talking about societies, we must think utilitarian and long-term.

Having understaffed sections of the economy is not a problem that has to do with total population or population trends but with the appeal of those sections as jobs. Given that each specialist area is necessarily a small minority of the workforce, the issue is not the total size of the work force but how the work force is divided. In any case, understaffed sections (in both capitalist and socialist countries!) are filled by changing the job conditions and incentives in order to encourage people to sign up tot them (such as centrally planned schemes for teachers and nurses, and soldiers).


Anyways, i think you're creepy "technocratic" "utilitarianism" is a guise for a very, totalitarian in the classic, theoretical sense, disregard for worker's personal power and freedom. The fact that you bring this up in terms of abortion points to that quite clearly.

[Dimentio]

Commodities do not merely have a use value as you're describing, they also have an exchange value. People who don't actually make consumable resources like food or steel make things that can be exchange for currency or credits or shares in the collectivized economy which can then be exchanged for consumable goods. This is true whether you have a capitalist economy, a socialist economy or a communist economy.

That is not the way the economy should work in a socialist system. A socialist system should ideally not use exchange at all, but distributionism. An ideal socialist system should resemble technocracy.


he concept of being able to retire hinges on ones ability to produce enough capital in excess of what needs to be exchanged for someones current living requirements that the extra capital has an exchange value sufficient for supporting them for years when they aren't working, and this is the case in both a capitalist and socialist model (the difference being the manner in which someone contributes to the economy and the manner in which they're supported). If there is an economy of such scarcity that people can't produce that much above their basic requirements, then people simply would not be able to retire. Thats not really such a shockingly bad thing, if you consider that providing for people's retirement is lower on a societies list of priorities than ensuring that people who work aren't starving to death, which would be the affect of people being able to add no more to the economy than they need to survive (which is a rather extreme scenario hardly ever seen in industrialized countries). In any case thats still an issue of production per capita not total production so your argument is still empirically invalid...except in a debt society.

You seem to think that human labor and money are the two most important criteria. That is not the case. With modern machinery, we could reduce labor input. But still, we need to have a majority with capacity to work, and still, we need to have a defense force.


Anyways, i think you're creepy "technocratic" "utilitarianism" is a guise for a very, totalitarian in the classic sense, disregard for worker's personal power and freedom. The fact that you bring this up in terms of abortion points to that quite clearly.

Do you even know what technocracy is?

[TC]

That is not the way the economy should work in a socialist system. A socialist system should ideally not use exchange at all, but distributionism. An ideal socialist system should resemble technocracy.

Well i guess you clearly aren't a Marxist in any sense as you're rejecting the labour theory of value, and you're not a leftist in any sense because you're rejecting social organisation on the basis of freedom from exploitation of labour. What you're describing would necessitate extract surplus labour from workers production without payment, this is the basis on which capitalism operates not the basis of socialism, so what you're arguing for isn't socialism at all, at least not in the leftist sense (maybe national socialism).

I'm not responding to the rest of your post since you're just babbling incoherently and failing to respond to my point.

[Dimentio]

Well i guess you clearly aren't a Marxist in any sense as you're rejecting the labour theory of value, and you're not a leftist in any sense because you're rejecting social organisation on the basis of freedom from exploitation of labour. What you're describing would necessitate extract surplus labour from workers production without payment, this is the basis on which capitalism operates not the basis of socialism, so what you're arguing for isn't socialism at all, at least not in the leftist sense (maybe national socialism).

What I am standing for is a system where we try to diminish labor as much as possible, while creating a surplus by utilising automatised machine labor. Every citizen would get an equal consumption quota, based on energy determinants. Money should be abolished. The quota could not be accumulated, exchanged or even saved, just used.

The final goal is a sort of civilisation where all humans are living like an aristocracy, living off the surplus produced by machines and in no need to work at all. But that lies several hundred years ahead.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Is there any reason to believe that the amount of abortions proportional to births will be a problem in the first place? The implicit assumption in this thread seems to be that that either births will decrease or that abortions will increase. On what is this assumption based?

On one hand, there is the known fact that birthrates decrease inversely with increased living standards, while on the other hand labour will be both reduced and more evenly distributed, allowing more time for child raising.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 12:46 pm
Is there any reason to believe that the amount of abortions proportional to births will be a problem in the first place? The implicit assumption in this thread seems to be that that either births will decrease or that abortions will increase. On what is this assumption based?

On one hand, there is the known fact that birthrates decrease inversely with increased living standards, while on the other hand labour will be both reduced and more evenly distributed, allowing more time for child raising.
No, in Italy, where abortions are illegal, there is a very low-birthrate. But they could have a correlation.

[TC]

Originally posted by Serpent+June 19, 2007 12:52 pm--> (Serpent @ June 19, 2007 12:52 pm)
[email protected] 19, 2007 12:46 pm
Is there any reason to believe that the amount of abortions proportional to births will be a problem in the first place? The implicit assumption in this thread seems to be that that either births will decrease or that abortions will increase. On what is this assumption based?

On one hand, there is the known fact that birthrates decrease inversely with increased living standards, while on the other hand labour will be both reduced and more evenly distributed, allowing more time for child raising.
No, in Italy, where abortions are illegal, there is a very low-birthrate. But they could have a correlation. [/b]
...uh...no...

abortion has been legal on demand until 13 weeks gestation since 1978. Just cause the catholics whine about it doesn't mean they got their way.

No country where abortion is illegal or heavily restricted has a birth rate anywhere near as low as the european average let alone italy's. The Irish birthrate is considerably higher, for instance, although lots of people in Ireland get abortions anyways (they just do it in England).

[Dimentio]

Okay, but Poland also have a very low birth-rate.

In Sweden, 30.000 out of 90.000 yearly pregnancies end in abortions. Probably, by lowering labor hours and abolish the need for careerism, we could lower the number of abortions since both parents would not have that need to work then.

[TC]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 01:32 pm
Okay, but Poland also have a very low birth-rate.

Okay but polish women have abortions, they just do it in Germany...

Abortion laws cannot effectively prevent European Union citizens from getting abortions, because apart from the UK and Ireland there are no travel restrictions between EU countries and they have reciprocal healthcare agreements.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2504499.html



In Sweden, 30.000 out of 90.000 yearly pregnancies end in abortions.

right...so what? In Russia, more than half of all pregnancies end in abortion...the Swedish rate isn't especially high.



Probably, by lowering labor hours and abolish the need for careerism, we could lower the number of abortions since both parents would not have that need to work then.

You're proposing a return to single-provider patriarchal household organization then. You would have to be a reactionary psycho to want that.


The issue is not that women's work and social lives prevent them from having and taking care of babies but that having babies prevents them from having a work and social life.

In this statement, you've revealed that your true motivation is not some kindof utilitarian concern for a sustainable work force, but rather a reactionary emotional desire to reduce the number of abortions and restore the patriarchal family.

You cannot both argue that people should have children in order to increase the work force and then argue that "we" could reduce the work force by half so that people could have children. That demonstrates that the desire was never an economic one to begin with but a sick social engineering one.

Its much more typical that couples who want children both want to be able to continue to work and have a social life and want the other one to take care of their kids, and the female partner simply loses out because the male partner tends to earn a bit more money to begin with, as well as social and cultural pressure and expectations.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Serpent+June 19, 2007 12:52 pm--> (Serpent @ June 19, 2007 12:52 pm)
[email protected] 19, 2007 12:46 pm
Is there any reason to believe that the amount of abortions proportional to births will be a problem in the first place? The implicit assumption in this thread seems to be that that either births will decrease or that abortions will increase. On what is this assumption based?

On one hand, there is the known fact that birthrates decrease inversely with increased living standards, while on the other hand labour will be both reduced and more evenly distributed, allowing more time for child raising.
No, in Italy, where abortions are illegal, there is a very low-birthrate. But they could have a correlation.[/b]
That doesn't answer my question. On what is the implicit assumption that either birth rates will decrease or abortion will increase in a classless society based?

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by NoXion+June 19, 2007 02:18 pm--> (NoXion @ June 19, 2007 02:18 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 12:52 pm

[email protected] 19, 2007 12:46 pm
Is there any reason to believe that the amount of abortions proportional to births will be a problem in the first place? The implicit assumption in this thread seems to be that that either births will decrease or that abortions will increase. On what is this assumption based?

On one hand, there is the known fact that birthrates decrease inversely with increased living standards, while on the other hand labour will be both reduced and more evenly distributed, allowing more time for child raising.
No, in Italy, where abortions are illegal, there is a very low-birthrate. But they could have a correlation.
That doesn't answer my question. On what is the implicit assumption that either birth rates will decrease or abortion will increase in a classless society based? [/b]
Hm... I could actually think it would increase, but one should assume that it will keep stagnant, and judge it from that point. In the Soviet Union, and other socialist states, birth rates did decrease, and as far as I remember, the USSR suffered from a surplus of women due to the war.


Let's approximate it. If we have fewer births and a higher standard of life allowing people to live longer, we will soon face shortages in a lot of areas. Abortion rates will probably not increase, but the question is whether the continuation of lower birth rates will continue due to the fact that young people generally do not want to settle.

[Dimentio]

One third is very high.

I am not proposing laws, because it will just turn people to illegal abortions.

And the male could stay home as well and the woman working. I am discussing a society where it is no money or trade. Hence, the economic incitament for a patriarchal household would fail.

Even in a classless society, one need to keep the percentage between different age groups in a level that is beneficient for the social organism as a whole. You seem to be quite angry out of some reason. And to use the term "social engineering" in a negative fashion is beyond me. It is better to try to modify society by redesigning it, than to try to modify it by threats of force.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Hmmm, perhaps we could sort this out... From reading the previous page, I get the impression that TC was saying that a high proportion of elderly people is not a problem because they have already produced enough during their active years to pay for their retirement, while Serpent was saying that there are no savings in a technocracy, so there would be no way to save up for retirement (either individually or collectively).

Or, as I understand it, the problem for the technocrats is that in a moneyless economy there is no obvious way to store part of the products of people's labour so that they may use them when they retire. Perhaps such a mechanism should be devised, then. Individual savings should not be introduced, of course, but the technocracy as a whole would do well to find some way to store "raw labour" (for lack of a better term).

[Dimentio]

*I'm a Necromancer*

The problem in any system of course, is that a higher amount of people in need of care in relation to those working creates a lower standard of life for everyone, no matter what economic system we have. Elder people do not just survive upon their money. Many of them need help to walk, make a call, go to the bathroom or the bed.

Theoretically, could it be an opportunity to create artificial wombs and...