Is electricity a "human right"?

[Velensk]

There is a second side to that. Money is never wasted merely circulated is to a certain extent true, but it can be circulated without accomplishing anything.

As an example, I know a family where the parents say they never actually pay taxes though they still had to do all the typical paperwork because the goverment would immediately send them back all the taxes paid in a tax return (and at times more). I don't know how many other families meet the requirements but I'd assume that there are others. So in essense they would end up benefitting from the things taxes pay for but wouldn't have to pay for it themselves because they were apparently a poor and needy family supporting six children on one income and some of the children and the mother have health problems (for the record, they lived quite comfortably though the children definately had frugality drilled into them. They were clever and hard working; the eldest two of them got into college without paying a cent). The fact that the goverment keeps track of this says that somewhere some bureaucrats have a job where at least part of their time is spent figuring out that this family didn't actually need to send them all that money and sending it back to them, and for this they are paid. Looking at just that microsection of the system the only thing really done there is that the goverment pays the bureaucrats and a lot of time is wasted. Now this keeps the bureacrats with jobs but leaves the 'goverment' in debt (which may actually be better than bureaucrats being out of a job and the nation not being as badly in debt if some economic theories are correct). Now the system as a whole obviously does get things done (and has sources of income) but there is also tremendous inefficiency and the more convoluted the system gets the more potential sorces of inefficiency. I think that particular family could have managed without the goverment help, maybe others cannot, but in any case the infrastructure this to handle would not be one of my top choices of where to sink strength (which goes back into the issue of politics). EDIT: Not that I'm saying that it isn't something worth spending strength on, just that it does not strike me as a top priority (and if we ever find out a way to get that work done well without using strength on it, hardly a priority at all).

I personally think one thing that few people list as a reason why the U.S. economic system is in trouble but which is definately a factor is that american labor, in many fields, has bid itself out of the market.

About the cold war: The spending on that was costly to both sides, the Soviets happened to give sooner. I cannot say for sure but I imagine that both nations would be considerably less in debt if they hadn't had an arms race as those things are about the definition of a goverment going into its own peoples debt (though there may be some technological breakthroughs to help pay the people back some).

[wayfarer]

Well that is another good point and that's where I said you could safe money.
You are spot on here. Money is wasted in a bureaucrazy. That makes the method wrong but not the idea.
But instead judging who is poor you give it out anyways. That is a step further away from the Negative income Tax to a basic income minimizing the bureaucrazy.

Of course it is all about trust. Do you trust someone else as much as you trust yourself?

[Velensk]

I do not know how to measure trust quantitatively, only qualitatively. I try to know in what ways I can trust myself and I've lived with myself for long enough to generally be right, same with my kin(and I trust each of them in a different way than the others). I do not know in what ways I can trust thousands of strangers and what I see makes me generally disinclined to trust those I don't know in many ways.

There's also the annoying fact that even if I could trust all but one of those people frequently the one could do enough damage to make up for most of the rest.

[wayfarer]

That's the basic problem I actual share, though as one example you trust other people in your daily live without any control.
You trust your doctor, your mechanic, even if you use a elevator you trust that everything is alright and somebody did his job. (At least you hope so)
You trust your bank even if you don't have any quarantee that the are honest with your money. Societies don't work without a certain amount of trust.

You don't trust your goverment, thats okay than you should give part of the taxes back to someone else but not your local Bank, Industry or whatever who have already enough of it but to someone who might have uses for it.

[Tonepoet]

@Tonepoet
Come one how is a Banker sweating? He is working with the money of other people not his own and the money itself isn't real it has no real value in the world you their are not enough goods in the world to use all this money.
Money is a promise that you can buy everything you want as long as you don't do it.

Wealth and riches encompasses more than just money. I don't know about sweat but I'm moreso thinking about the mutual good, so smarts matter too. The banks benefit us by not only securing money we'd have trouble securing ourselves, but must wisely invest the otherwise reserved resources into companies that need capital to provide us with a tangible benefit to make enough returns to satisfy the needs of their account holders with interest. I suppose the manner in which he sweats is not of effort but of fear, as he attempts to prevent the sort of catastrophe you foretell, lest the bank dissolves and he with his coworkers lose all their jobs.

Besides, it's not only the bankers, all of our intellectual elite like politicians and scientists have the possibility to better society in ways. Even the upper management, who so often have little sympathy from the people. A great example of a C.E.O. who has greatly improved the state of our lives is Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs. He and his company are admittedly no inventors themselves, but when Steve's sharp eye for what works and what doesn't usually allows Apple to create products that mark milestones in the computing industry. The earliest Macintosh Computers brought about the G.U.I. before he left and when he came back, the iMac helped popularized USB, the internet, did away with the floppy disc and brought about a sense of style in computers. The iPod and iTunes likewise revolutionalized the music industry, laid out a framework for purchasing digital downloads and put a brand new spin on mobile devices. What's more, during the Jobless era without Steve's leadership the company was stagnating in conformity and was more or less sitting upon the brink of death. Has society not been in some way enrichened by these advancements? Who knows when or maybe even if many of these things would've come to pass?

Yes the system can fail if the demand for goods is grossly overdrawn but ultimately any would due to factors beyond our control. We're more likely to be overdrawn if we give our resources to people who haven't given back at all. We just have to do the best with what we have and part of that is cautious resource allocation. Also there are two more things about it while goods are ultimately only finite in number, services aren't so perhaps the money can still be good for something.

About taxes? You pay taxes for your social security your roads your public transportation etc...
Well we could all stop doing it.
How fun would it be? Again we are a community we don't do it for fun we do it because without we couldn't survive.

I said "minimalist" not none. Roads and their adjoining sidewalks are a great example of something everybody should pay to create and maintain as they benefit the whole of society in many ways. There are many such things that should be getting the money first before even considering the rest of it.

Social security hardly seems necessary for our survival though, since I could easily save up for retirement account for myself if I so wanted and most people have to regardless.

Public Transportation actually half-strikes me as a rather shoddily run business. It's prone to many of the same problems as electricity thanks to its monopolistic nature, which not only gives the administration little reason to be competitively scrupulous with the budget once the unionized workers go on strike but gives us little frame of reference to see if competing privatized agencies could do any better. The result is less lines and fewer stops less frequently with off punctuality. As a menial worker, I used to earn about the approximate cost of the fare if not slightly more doled out in quarter-hour increments, so I'd rather pay more than occasionally being 15-30 minutes late to perform my responsibilities, backing them up, frustrating my co-workers and earning less to boot. I'd say more but beyond that, perhaps it'd only amount to griping. At any rate, if we could at least skip the fares, then maybe I'd understand since it could make things flow a lot more smoothly with less overhead but as is it largely seems like a waste.

Also some of it is done just for fun. Ever hear about Parks & Recreation? I'm not wholly against 'lest we're to have the whole world paved and ugly it but some things about it strike me as simple decadence or even thoughtless. Especially the "City Beautification Projects" which do outright weird things like planting Ivy on a private storefront without first informing the owner, so that it starts eating away at the building itself and has to be removed... That's both a headache and a waste.

As all this pertains to electricity, I believe most of those who have practical application for it will have it as a workplace provision anyway. Most everything that can be done with it at the home, including electric lighting, is more or less a convenience or a luxury, with maybe the sole exception of telecommunication, as communicative ability is a vital portion of any society's coherence.

And again this human world view. Would you stop working just because you won't starve?

I'm currently a dependent myself actually. I primarily quit my last job because I anticipated I had to move due to both a change in property ownership and black mold found in the home, albeit I was on the verge of doing so anyway because the job wasn't quite a walk in the park either. That's all I feel comfortable revealing in the public for everybody to overhear but should you want to continue discussion about this, I might be a little more revealing in P.M. To summarize one such sentiment, not all jobs are a walk in the park.

I heard a very nice lecture. People have two world views. A humanist world view for themselves and a another one for everybody else. Everyone in this Thread tells me he would still be working but they don't believe that anyone else will.

I agree the perception of self and others is a very interesting topic but I see little relevance to "Humanism" and the topic at hand. I'm talking moreso about practicality than morality. I don't know how you think of it so perhaps we have a different outlook. However, I personally don't think that not contributing to society is necessarily a bad thing, so the question isn't "shouldn't you be contributing?" I see society as essentially being a volunteer alliance formed for the proportionally mutual benefit of its participants. If we hadn't formed this alliance, we'd all have to fend for ourselves, so I see little reason why we should be compelled to benefit people much more than they should pitch in. Sure, generosity is a virtue and if somebody's so inclined to do something with their money, that's their "earned" right and own load to bear. However welfare provisions amount to being generous with other people's earnings, which is counterproductive, dangerously easy and perhaps somewhat unfair.

Again though just to be specific, little, not none. It does us little good to have a willing participant who can't help because they've been undereducated and aren't qualified to perform any job, so schools must be provided for any potential workers. Also any resources we should already happen to need on standby, such as law enforcement or firemen would be not only be pointlessly cruel to withhold but it's the least we can do for subjecting them to the law of the land and possibly counterproductive to our purposes: "Sir? Sir! You can't leave just yet. Now that I've returned your wallet that contains your five business cards, a pack of gum and a wallet containing $55.62 I must inform you of the fee for my services… It's $500. Pay up by thursday or you'll be in the clinker yourself." or maybe:

"Listen ma'am quickly, 'cause I want to put out this fire before it spreads into the other homes. Do you have your proof of insurance or not?"
"Wait a moment... OMFG, I had it a moment ago but it's now on fire! Just please help me! "
"Sigh, not again… Sorry miss, department policy, I have to wait until the neighbor's house catches otherwise we don't get paid. Here's to hoping you can survive that long. Soo while we're waiting', fine whether we're havin' today huh?"
"Noooooo…."

I'd normally say anything that has a more individualistic nature might be outside of our obligations, 'lest we want to empty out the whole of our savings and skip all luxury as a manner of principal. There are certainly enough needy people out there to do it. However a set of basic clothes must be a provision, at least for however long indecent exposure remains a crime.

[wayfarer]

1.
Well I should have been a bit more clearer I don't like banks as such but Rating agenzies or investment bankers. Some Fortune tellers are more precise and this joke is not even funny I read about a competition between an ape and so called spezialists who choose stocks. Well the apes in the suits always lost.
Or rating Agenzies the rating goes down and a whole countries is suddenly bankrupt? I mean serious?

And Apple I mean I can understand that no one likes Microsoft but Apple?
Standards? Who needs them anyways?
Devices that existed already repackaged with some new shiny stuff. Very inovative.
If I want to make a call I don't need a toaster in my mobile phone.
Restrictive content? Oh my don't get me started.
I don't get this Apple love Microsoft would get burned for this kind of crap.
But that's Off Topic, I never said this big players should be removed I just statet that everyone should get the same chances guaranteed. It is not like we don't have the money or the goods.

2.
Funny stuff I have seen privatized public transports and I don't like it our puplic transports were never exact but they were everywhere and quite regular and actual good value. Nowadays as it went private it gets more and more expensive even more delays less regular and not even everywhere it just got crap.
Saying just because it is private it is better is as wrong as saying the goverment is always right.

3.
Well I can't say that I don't understand you and I never said that all jobs are equal indeed I stated that if you mustn't starve you can be a bit more picky and that perhaps jops which aren't exactly a walk in the park are getting paid a bit better.

4.
I'm practical here aswell not humanist. Humanism will always be a fig leaf. The truth is that we have a selection based on Income and money. Wealthier parents mean that their children will get more likely a better education. Nothing wrong per se if you have the financial backround.
That doesn't mean that those group always contains the one that might have the idea that changes the future.
I read about an philosopher who stated that under 100000 humans their might be one with an idea that changes the future.
If you thing about it one person that creates progress for all an interesting thought no?
Look in the books. There were always few with inovative ideas and techincal break-throughs that made our lives a bit more interesting.
Perhaps not with the implemenation but with their ideas.
You will always have someone who doesn't want to work but they won't go away. So you want to punish all because of the mistakes of few?
If we loose one with the right idea that might change the future because he was born in the wrong family who is more stupid?
It is not humanism it is indeed pragmatism. Look at Stephen Hawking without the proper education he would just be another guy with a strange sickness not one who is mentioned in the same breath with Einstein.

[Zerovirus]

My perspective on this kind of thing is quite simple.

We now have human rights that we did not in the past, such as the right to free speech in most democratic countries. This was not considered a common right in the past.

In the future, we will have more and more rights that we take for granted, as human civilization hopefully develops in a positive fashion.

There is a chance that the right to electricity, food, shelter, and basic luxuries will be one of these rights. We can't really predict what future rights will be, as that implies knowing how future culture and ethics will develop under the influence of new developments in technology and theology.

Right now, electricity is not a human right simply given that it's too rare to be effectively a human right. Perhaps, in a future with more resources conjured up with scientific means, we will be able to embrace electricity as a right and distribute it fairly to everyone, possibly under a whole umbrella "Right To Necessities Of Modern Life" concept.

Many countries have minimum wage laws, which act almost like a human right in utilitarian terms in that they offer a baseline minimum. In the past, this did not exist- so it is entirely possible that in the future more and more minimum resource/utility concepts will become commonplace.

I'm something of a moderate humanist, if that makes my opinion any more interesting in any way.

[wayfarer]

You are coming from the wrong perspective. We have laws because it is bad for business if you can't sue someone for breach of a contract.
We have working standards because the more rational factory owners realized that happy workers are better workers and accidents are lost money aka bad for business.
And so on.
After all we are and never will be nice.
We have laws and rights because they are usefull not because we are humans.

[Zerovirus]

That's rather splitting hairs. The effects are the exact same; it's just that I choose to take it in a more optimistic way. Either way, the trend continues in the direction of expansion of the definition of human rights.

Still, you're probably more correct. This is a perfect opportunity for me to go do some research and come back later with an expanded mind.

[Tonepoet]

I'd like to have such an optimistic view of the world Zerovirus but I'm skeptical of the concept of ever increasing rights because it requires ever increasing improvement and ever decreasing burden. We might not be able to predict the future with utter certainty but I think that uncertainty is why we should be prepared for the worst. Rights are typically viewed as something people feel they should always have regardless of circumstance, a socially promised condition of life. If something should ever happen so that the promise cannot be fulfilled, you end up with discontemptment. I'm particularly weary of it because as I said before, when the demand grows grossly overdrawn, any system will fail. A primary concern in that regard I have is that people are thriving too well as the world population is increasing at an exponential rate, pressuring our ultimate resources and present infrastructures. Unless there's a sudden resurgence in space travel, there's only a finite amount of ground we can put beneath our feet no matter what we do.

I must admit you have an interesting point though. If it were considered especially common or easy to come by, via the modality of renewable energy and automated processes, we might see publicly accessible solar powered electrical outlets being as common as park drinking fountains without troubling people much. Albeit with that comparison, I still don't see the provision as being a given right per se. I mean, I've never seen anybody refer to a drinking fountain as a right and I've never seen much demand for them but perhaps that's because I don't play much of a role in local civics.

We have working standards because the more rational factory owners realized that happy workers are better workers and accidents are lost money aka bad for business.

While it is the primary focus of current discussion, I think it's important to note law's interests don't simply end at economic policy. We have safety regulations to keep everybody safe, not just workers or anybody of any particular class. Scrutiny over motivations aside, you'd be just as guilty of manslaughter for accidentally running over some worthless bum out on the streets with a car as you would be if you did the same to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and would face largely the same repercussions under the law.

I don't think I have much more to add to most of my prior points except maybe clarifications and maybe some thoughts about minimum wage that perhaps I'll be able to get to later. For now I have so much to say that I'd like to say on point 4 in particular, as it's a fresh subject of interest, so I'd like to focus on that:

Inheritance only makes things very marginally unfair at most, considering that most first world nations have publicly funded mandatory graded education that spans over a decade with grading academic achievements for collages to see which people apply themselves best to take advantage of scholarship programs. Sure some families can afford better regardless of how well they do but they're spending their well earned money to do so, which further expands the capacity of the system. As such I'd say more than a fair minimum is provided.

To see the money as being unearned, you'd have to ignore the work of the original benefactor a very large degree:

While I would assert there are ways to guess who might do better in collage, I must admit you're ultimately right when you say we can't predict the talents of people ahead of time, intellectual or otherwise. That's why when we find out who's a skilled worker, we want to keep them working for as long as possible. This poses a problem when somebody has more earning potential than spending desire since if the government repossesses all they have upon death because it's felt they don't need it anymore, they might simply opt for an early retirement with lavish spending habits.

Just as important to consider is that not only the insanely rich are benefitted by inheritance; families are too. Many families have a two parent structure where one parent stays at home to keep an eye on the kids and make sure they're not in any trouble, while the other goes out to work and earns a daily living for everybody. Since everything would be in the name of the earner, in the event that this person should die, repossessing all that they have would be highly disruptive to that family's way of life regardless of class. It's a terrible thing when a family man spends his whole life doing things because he'd been driven by the desire of trying to make things good for his wife and children only to see his efforts wasted, while his family has financial burdens adding further fuel to their flaming despair during their mourning period. In the case that somebody doesn't have a family, money can still be donated to any number of friends organizations or causes they feel strongly about.

We also have bureaucratic considerations to make considering how things should be properly distributed quickly, efficiently and fairly in such a way that it doesn't go unused since that would be a waste of resources. There's also the consideration that if we banned inheritance, that people in a terminal or near terminal state would try to skirt around the law by signing things away while they're still alive. By delegating the same rights to a person that he has while he's alive in a final will and testament to be enacted at his death we avoid a fair amount of costliness created by the proceedings. I'd say it's the fairest thing too, since in serving the role they did to bring society where it is today, society still technically owes them their net worth. Assuming these contributions were valued properly, it's not disruptive to any member of society who'd already given away their money to the recently deceased in question.

Perhaps one of the biggest complaints is about so called "old money" albeit I don't think that's much of a problem either because mismanaged or often divided wealth will eventually disperse naturally with time. This requires further input from the heirs if the beneficiaries wish to remain atop the social ladder for very long, so some amount of work still has to be done, some way somehow or else the decay starts to garner representation in total worth. I feel eliminating inheritance will make the elderly work less, which not only burdens future generations needlessly but also proportionately lowers the value of education for those who wish to take early retirement as mentioned above.

Look in the books. There were always few with innovative ideas and techincal break-throughs that made our lives a bit more interesting.
Perhaps not with the implemenation but with their ideas.
You will always have someone who doesn't want to work but they won't go away. So you want to punish all because of the mistakes of few?

No but the current system is one of reward, not one of punishment. If somebody does something to earn it, they get money to do as they please with. Why should society do anything for those who don't want anything to do with it? Some might consider noninterference a virtue. If the colonialists had principals similar to Star Trek's prime directive, there'd have been a lot fewer wrongs in the world. The Americas might still have native tribes who're perfectly content with their culture and the ways of living off the land. Their elitism got the better of them though and so instead they've got otherwise great civilizations that have lots of wrongful blood on its hands.

If we loose one with the right idea that might change the future because he was born in the wrong family who is more stupid?
It is not humanism it is indeed pragmatism. Look at Stephen Hawking without the proper education he would just be another guy with a strange sickness not one who is mentioned in the same breath with Einstein.

I think this has less so to do with education moreso to do with application. Stephen Hawking might not 'only' an example of a man who doesn't have to work but does so anyway for the betterment of mankind but due to being a paraplegic, an example of a man who can't live for much else except thinking. He's a near fully paralyzed paraplegic after all. Having such disability heightens your awareness as you're forced to pay greater attention to what you can do. In basic principal, it's kinda like how blind people are known to often have the heightened senses of hearing and touch. Perhaps it's also worth noting that people can transcend their class within but a single lifetime with enough hard work and dedication, if you have the right mind and the right ideas.

To exemplify these thoughts, let's go back as suggested. You mention [Albert] Einstein as being an example of one of the world's foremost scientific minds but it's worth noting that the Einsteins appear to've been poor jews living in pre-Nazi Germany. Having been born in 1879, Albert would've only been only 15 years old when his father's business failed in 1894, an age where most people are still undertaking public education I might note.

Taking this trend to an even further extreme would be to mention the great political revolutionary and renowned scientist Benjamin Franklin, who can be attributed as being a signatory body of both the U.S. Constitution and its Declaration of Independence and with inventions such as the bifocal, the lightning rod and the odometer attributed to him amongst a great number of many other achievements. The important thing about this? He did it all on two years of grammar school because that's all his father could afford and gratuitous application of self-study. Now it'd be insulting to the man's principals to use him as an example against social services such as education since he was quite their proponent, founding the first library, hospital and fire department in the U.S.A. Nevertheless considering that he's perhaps one of the most accomplished, multi-talented and influential people in history, so it's something to consider when considering how we should educate people.

This brings us back full circle, as I think we should really question the effectiveness of the current educational systems in place. This is especially so when you considering how much of the learning seems to be forgotten or otherwise unused by post high-school graduates. You often see people using calculators to work with the fundamental maths, while newspapers dumb down their readability as a common practice to remain accessible to the largest possible audience. The system as a whole is so inefficiently and obviously broken that it's profitably entertaining to take advantage of and poke fun at the general public's utter lack of knowledge: you might be able to witness the embarrassing results of the spectacle for yourself on an internationally syndicated game show. Part of the intrigue, at least so I'd imagine, would be that it's obviously not a preferable state of affairs.

It's really a grievance I can only hope but to hypothesize about: Is it an exercise in futility to try and remember so much information over that long a period of time? Is the short term memory overloaded with all the information crammed into during the individual learning sessions? Is it a manner of disinterest caused by an unwillingness to be forced into school? Is the information simply not retained because most of it isn't relevant to daily life? Perhaps original thought and scientific process is simply stifled in the system's insistence upon route learning? It's probably a combination of these factors really but at any rate, the system's massively inefficient and needs serious retooling. Perhaps we could serve society better by cutting out funding from our weakest subjects and retool it into higher learning we're more likely to take interest in and make use of in our daily lives. I don't know. Going back to the examples above, Einstein was no fan of strict rote learning and Franklin had practically no part in it, yet it's the system of education schools seem to employ most heavily today, so even while a little tautology may be necessary to get people started, perhaps the problem lays therewith?

[wayfarer]

This one deserves a longer response but I do cut it short.
Higher Education is expensive in the USA for sure in Germany aswell. No point arguing about that.
There are also funny statistics out there who illustrate the success rates compared to income and social backrounds.

And I can't remember that I have particle accelerator in my garrage. And you can only access to such stuff with the proper graduation.
That's where the progress is made at the moment.

I will elaborate a bit later.

[wayfarer]

You see electrics as a gift? And laws in general? Well look from a historical perspective we had unfree and bond-slave. Killing one of them would make no difference you would only loose a worker.
Later good education had a worth killing someone with a proper education gets expensive.
The Prussian compulsory education was introduced because the soldiers were to stupid to read and weakened due child labour.

You need a certain amount of education and people who know the right buttons to push or else we couldn't have this standard of living.
Knowledge comes with power and you can actual measure knowledge in money (which is actual stupid but we do it).

It is not a gift it is a contract you tread as fair and we work for you. If you break your part of the contract you'll have such an nice Revolution like in Egypt or Tunisia. It is not about some turban wearing lunatics it is about the educated and poor alike who feel rightfully they are taking the piss. Well Wisconsin seems to get the idea aswell.

Basically I don't see such stuff as a present it is part of the deal.

[ancestral]

Yes, everyone should have the right to listen to it.

[e7th04sh]

Human right is a misleading term. If try to approach it theoretically, philosophically, ethically, then we will either have to accept arriving at absurd conclusion, or making way too many poor axioms.

As with many such terms, human rights is a vague concept that has roots in our social instincts. Majority of humans have compassion to others, because letting another human die, another human, that is first of all a genetically related being and also a probably useful cell of our herd, is counter-productive at most times. Without genuine interest in finding a set of as non-arbitrary as possible rules that should guide a man through life, we will all just be pursuing our evolutionary interest, even if convinced of special meaning of this struggle.

[Sapient]

Disagree: if human rights exist to help us evolve the human race, then shouldn't it be our right to cull or sterilize the unfit?

I liked your first paragraph though. I arrived at a similar conclusion and that was when I stopped debating whether or not electricity is a human right.