[The One and Only...]

You're going to have to do better than that. Prove it. Show me a neuroscientific correlate to 'unlimited desire', that's one approach. Otherwise you are full of hot air.

Consider this. Throughout all of human history, man has always desired for more than what he has.

Even if desire were not infinite, can you concieve of it ending anytime soon? And what, pray tell, if you are like me and believe that desires are latent in the mind from birth, sort of system will lead to the end of desire the quickest?

So, from my birth, I had a little inactive nugget in my brain that corresponded to my 'DVD pleasure' thoughts. It activated with the invention of the DVD player. Yes, that makes complete sense now!!!!

Think of it this way. Capitalism, as a system, can only correspond to already existing desires to make a profit. In order to find out if a good is desired, it uses quantitative analysis in the form of polls, recent trends, and sometimes even common sense. If the data shows a high possible profit, it creates the item.

The only thing you have left in your defense is that ideas create desire. If so, what, pray tell, is your solution? To end all ideas? Have fun with that. I don't think humanity would find it very enjoyable.

Futhermore, I again ask: why is the creation of desire a bad thing? I desire much, but I do not lose any pleasure because of it. Yet I know that if those desires were filled, I would be much happier.

You are so far into dialetical materialism that you have become blind to reality.

Brandon, I do not think that pleasure comes from the fulfillment of instincts alone. It has become obvious to me that you are a devotee of Nietzche before any other.

Max, there is such a thing as a pleasure unit, it is just difficult to quantify.

Point in case: I step on your toe. You lose pleasure because of this. Therefore, the utility of my stepping on your toe was negative. I give you a million dollars. You gain pleasure because of this. Therefore, the utility of a million dollars is positive.

So long as you can admit that pleasure varies among different circumstances - which, I assume, you all do - then units of pleasure can be assumed to exist. They just cannot be calculated at the current time. The subjectivity of pleasure is irrelevant: what is pleasureable to one is pleasureable to him; what is not, is not. The subject nature is, after all, my point.

Your analogy with the burger flipper is flawed; I already pointed out how capitalism modifies pleasure ratios. You have not yet truly refuted this.

Monopolies, in a market, can only sustain themselves as long as they provide services at reasonable prices - if not, they subject themselves to competition. In any case, I have not yet seen any evidence to suggest that monopolies have a high probability of ever forming in laissez-faire, except in the most bizarre of cases.

You should know enough by now to see that even if competition were, somehow, knocked out the picture forever, monopolies would still make the most money at an optimal interaction between supply and demand. This is why monopolies do not endlessly jack-up costs.

The choice of death is still a choice. After all, the "freedom to starve" is a key line of rhetoric for libertarians in bashing the Welfare State.