This is the problem. Nothing wrong with hoping for a nice present at Christmas. Nothing wrong dreaming about enjoying the nice present. However if you really *believe* that a white-bearded gentleman in a sleigh pulled by reindeer is going to come down your chimney to deliver it you are fucked.
In other words, you are a skeptic- and quite possibly a solipsist. Let me ask you this- are your senses perfect? Do you ever feel something, see something, taste something, or smell something that isn't there? How do you know that what you think is true, is true?
But you don't see mass-sterilization and prevention of somebody from bearing their own children against their own will as evil?
Exactly why I had #1 as well- that is obviously the WRONG path. And I was trolled into taking it.
On a completely-unrelated note, what do you think of non-Catholics?
There are 2 classes of non-Catholics: 1. Protestants- people who protest against what they see as the oppression of the church; and by extension, the oppression of Christ. These people have forgotten their own history- and as such are doomed to repeat it. 2. Pagans- who never knew Christ as Catholics know him- but who have other experiences with the devine. These people not only remember their history- they're often better human beings than we are. They're also quite often LEAVER societies instead of TAKER societies. As a rule- leaving human survival in the hands of God gives a freedom that capitalists and socialists can only dream about, but never achieve. We're too adicted to materialism for our own good.
Bullshit. Go read the history surrounding the Gutenberg printing press. Peoples' old jobs were indeed lost -- those who used to manually copy texts -- and they were re-employed into the field of implementing the printing press around the world.
Sorry- you misunderstood. This is a relatively new meme- only 160 years old. In Guttenberg's day, if they weren't printing, they could still farm. 98% of the people were needed just to survive. Thus the economical lessons of that time are not applicable to TODAY.
They benefited from having their hard, brainless work of manual copying done for them, and were freed to work on ensuring that greater volumes of books could be printed via the printing press. That is why it is now possible for virtually everybody on Earth to own at least a couple books (often the Bible, for which the printing press was originally invented to mass-produce), rather than an elite, well-educated aristocracy.
We were better off with the elite well educated aristocracy- at least they could think for themselves instead of worshiping economists who have nothing worthwhile to say about our time.
Because improved technology leads to increased complexity; increased complexity leads to increased amount of thought and work necessary to maintain the technology; and increased amounts of thought and work necessary to maintain that technology requires more people to do so. And yet- there's no evidence that this is sustainable- or that ever increasing levels of technology will ALWAYS require more people. In fact, the lesson has been quite the opposite for the last 160 years if you look at the labor utilization rate of the United States. Once it was 100%- these days we're lucky if it hits 66%, and that's considered a boom time.
Your society takes us back to a neanderthal agrarian economy, in which we would not be having this conversation over the Internet because of your anti-Enlightenment economic system.
Not necessarily- it depends on which way we go with it, and how it is managed.
Your company, "Information-R-Us" (which, BTW, must not do much business, since you have absolutely *no* means for customers to contact you, assuming it's a legitimate business at all, rather than a front for your "anti-cyberterrorism toolkit" which may well be a grab-bag of remote Windows exploits), would not exist because things like LAN technology and DSL wouldn't be developed or in-use either, because after all -- they take away from people's livelihoods of producing books by-hand, live entertainment, etc..
It's actually an old business- and it wouldn't need to exist because I'd be profitably having my time engaged elsewhere. But that wouldn't necessarily be true either- you're thinking I want to wind back the clock, when in reality I want to move FORWARD with it.
Because of your fundamental misunderstanding on this subject, I again seriously doubt there is
A 2nd clarification: I've said where Marx went wrong- here's where Adam Smith went wrong: 1. Denial of religion- by embracing one of the seven deadly sins, Adam Smith denied morality as a motivator for human beings. 2. Lack of proper data gathering- while the Invisible Hand of the Market is very good at determining WANTS it's very bad at determining NEEDS- particularily of people who are unemployed or underemployed and thus denied entry into the market. 3. Lack of patience- Capitalism wants efficiency immediately, and will run you right over and pound you into the ground if you get in the way. 4. Centralization- by not putting any checks and balances on greed, mergers of corporations mean that in the end there can be only one mega-corporation- one board to rule them all, one board to find them, one board to bind them all and in the darkness profit from them.
Oddly enough, this doesn't change my recommendations AT ALL- the same 4 things are wrong, and the same set of decentralization methods will fix them.
The $17/hr figure is what I got when I divided a $100,000/year salary by 5720 hours; what a person would be working if they were constantly working 110 hour weeks with no vacations.
How can a theology be both animistic *and* Roman Catholic? Animism is a heresy. Ask the Pope.
Even heresies, the Church has learned over the centuries, often contain much truth. More than 75% of Martin Luther's complaints, to take a recent example, are now Canon Law.
The example from animism is this: Take what you need- and what God gives- but no more. Moderation is key- extremes are bad. That's true in Roman Catholicism and in animism- and speaks to what has gone wrong with corporatism.
And what is "ultimate survival"?
A good example to me is why the Church is against Euthanasia- ultimately, we must leave our survival up to God, and not take our own life or the lives of others.
Native Americans hunted game for food, built shelters, made clothes - they looked after themselves like human beings do.
Yes, they did- and there's nothing wrong with this. What goes wrong is when we let one deadly sin rule over all else- Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth. Primative tribes (not just Native Americans) understood this- do you?
And if your mind is so open as to find the good in Nazism then you'll believe anything.
And what is wrong with belief, may I ask? What is wrong with having hopes and dreams?
How much Marx have you read, by the way?
Enough to know the four places he went wrong: 1. Denial of religion. For without moral values, sharing ceases to be a virtue. 2. Lack of proper data gathering. Without knowing the wants and needs of the population, over production and under production is inevitable 3. Lack of patience- the technology wasn't ready for what he was proposing at the time- agricultural science was just begining to prove itself, and 98% of the population was still required to work on the farms for the society to eat. A far cry from today when our main economic problem is a surplus of labor. 4. Centralization- this is the worst mistake he made, and it's a mistake that is being duplicated today in corporatism and centralized stock markets under so-called "capitalistic" countries.
My current recomendation is a very light touch- $1/mile shipping tax on standard 40' shipping containers (to slow down globalism and pay for the environmental damage that globalism causes), 1% increase in corporate income taxes (to pay for permaculture grants worldwide), and a reasonable maximum wage law tied to a certain percentage of the minimum wage- at least 1000%, but maybe 10000%, since our culture is far more complex than ancient Greece. This is enough to encourage standard market forces to become more moral- no more central planning needs be done than that. With less interferance from multinational corporations, local populations doing local planning can take care of the rest- and are more likely to have unified religious values, less complex data gathering requirements, and a better knowledge and wish to care for the local environment as well.
1. I've gotten trolled- we've trolled each other. Because of that, I've strayed from the basic idea of distributionism- that all that is required for central planning to build a group of localized communist and capitalist utopias is a tax on shipping to prevent large corporations and greedy individuals from grabing more market share than they deserve.
2. I believe it is our DUTY as human beings to fight against evil, not co-operate with it- that freedom to do evil is worthless. That's why the carrot is so unappealing to me.
3. Finally- see my presidential campaign blog on Technocrat (there's a link in my journal)- I no longer believe labor to be necessary to a prosperous society. That has been becoming more true every year for 160 years now- and in the next 20 it will lead to 80% unemployment in the United States. Thus, encouraging people to do EXTRA, to do a good job, is no longer a good thing for society as a whole- every little extra thing you do is taking away a job from somebody else. This is particularily true under corporate globalism- but would have happened anyway once our technology reached the point where human labor was no longer necessary to survive.
Yes- I contradict myself often because I'm still unsure which is the best way to go. I also have a great fear that the default will be what I've already described- a small number of corporations owning everything- because that's the road we're already on.
Really? We've replaced 1 communist dictator with 1 multinational corporation?
There is only 1 multinational corporation in America? Really?
Not yet- but the process is accelerating, and in the end, there can be only one. That's what competition where the competitors are allowed to cheat ALWAYS ends up. The only question remaining will be if that one is a government of, by, and for the people- or a government of, by, and for profit. I hope it's the former- but that hope is quickly dying. The mergers are happening- and there are Japanese on the board of directors of Ford. It's not just America that will be ruled by the one- it's the entire world.
The regulation of monopolies and other distasteful business variants (ones with racist owners, etc.) is called "the consumer."
Trouble is you have to buy from *someone*- so anything the oligarchy all decides is right to do, will be done industry-wide.
There's one other factor you've ignored: that politicians, as government agents, should not accept corporate bribes. The sole responsibility of the corporation is to turn a profit for its shareholders; that's it. One should expect corporations to try to buy off politicians. But we expect politicians to rise above such things -- and as you note, they have not.
The problem as I see it is this- even campaigns are expected to turn a profit these days, for the advertisers if nobody else- and that costs one heck of a lot of money. Something like a half a billion was raised for our recent presidential election- that money had to come from somewhere, and bribes are the most profitable way to raise the money.
But that (supposedly) takes away jobs, which you've already said is a problem with capitalism
Automation certainly does- to some extent- take away jobs. However, while this is a problem in capitalism, it's NOT a problem in communism- because if your basic needs are taken care of you don't necessarily NEED a steady job to survive.
Rather than centralize power with 1 government, we decentralize it to a few large businesses or many smaller businesses, depending on the whims of the marketplace. In the U.S., many are content to go to Wal-Mart rather than Mom-n-Pop-Shop. Wal-Mart, then, is not evil enough to drive those customers away, and hence, the market accepts them...
And thus we end up loosing freedom.
You mean to tell me there's no competition between Ford, Dodge, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, etc. etc.?
You picked a couple of bad examples for your side here- not only is there very little competition left among auto manufacturers, they even share factories these days. An Escort rolling off the line one car- a Turcel rolling off the line the next car- same car, different sticker.
Or that there is no competition between Visa, Mastercard, Discover, AMEX, etc.?
Not that I can tell- they all offer the same high rates and are owned by the same people. About 50 people own all of the banking industry worldwide, when you get right down to it. And only about 25 are Americans.
Look at the automobile manufacturers. Compare the quality of those manufacturers from 1980 onwards and look at the number of problems per 100 cars. Consumer Reports does this, and they show a *dramatic* drop in problems after Japanese competition was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, American cars even beat out European cars in overall quality, though both still lag far-behind those of the Japanese. So clearly there is lots of competition in the automobile market.
No- what that proves is that the Japanese bought out the American companies and are running the American factories in a Japanese fashion.
At best, you can argue your case within specific industries -- software, for example, in which MSFT dominates, or mainframes, in which IBM is the only player left (after decades of competition). But in other industries, your over-broad brush stroke is painting outside the lines of factual basis.
You've yet to provide an example. So I will- AFAIK, electric vehicles, as opposed to gas automobiles, is still not mature enough to end up in this model. But let's not forget that my full timeline DOES require decades of competition first- before a corporation accumulates enough money and power to give campaign contributions to politicians in return for laws that keep other players out of the market.
Even if your argument were based in reality, riddle me this: if you have several competing companies trying to get their own version of laws passed, then those versions compete w/ each other. Sun wants laws against monopolies
No, you do not. Sell your computer and give the money to charity, and then we can start talking.
Did that a long time ago- what computers I own that are worth selling (not every computer has value anymore- the majority of mine are homebrews from scrounged parts that nobody would WANT to buy- that in fact, they paid me for hauling off). The one I'm typing on right now I don't own.
Sorry, I really don't understand what you mean. In what sense were they *leavers*?
Actually, most human civilizations have been leavers- only three strains have been takers, and the taker culture has a tendency to be viral, taking up all available territory. The terminology comes from Daniel Quinn, a science fiction writer big into ecology- but I found out just last night that the basic theology behind it is both animistic and Roman Catholic. Leavers leave their ultimate survival in the hands of God- or the gods- or the spirits- basically in the hands of external forces. Takers, on the other hand, take control of their own survival, and the survival of their neighbors and friends.
As to marxism, I don't care what your second name is. Suppose I call myself Nazi Benefactor. Is that alright?
Perfectly fine- after all, Nazism in it's pure form is a type of being a benefactor. I'd just assume that you're using the second world to modify the first; and thus you aren't the type of Nazi looking to scapegoat and kill Jews, but instead you're the type of National Socialist that merges the power of the corporation with the power of government to provide some benefit to the people. That's what I mean by keeping an open mind.
When I was born- it was a lot harder to do it from the OUTSIDE!:-) Back to the point though- or at least my point- I don't hold with hypocricy for any reason.
Actually, you have done precisely that.
How so? I give as much as I possibly can to Fr. Taft- and his homes for unwed mothers.
By your own standard, you are certainly hypocritical.
Really? Once again, how so? Making something illegal doesn't reduce a practice- it only turns the people that do that into criminals. I'd be happy to have even 3x the taxes I currently pay- making me earn nothing- if I could be guaranteed such a right to life for everybody. Can you Republicans say the same? I challenge you to live up to that level of respect for human life!
I don't care what you are. "Pro-life" and "pro-choice" commonly refer to beliefs about abortion.
And somebody who says they believe in something and then does nothing about it is what?
Whatever you want those words to "really" mean is irrelevant, and saying Rossi -- also Catholic -- is not pro-life based on your unclarified redefinition is stupid.
Hey, I'm not the one who's being hypocritical, claiming to be pro-life and then refusing to do everything possible to reduce abortion.
Your ideas behind those redefinitions are stupid too -- if Bill Gates gave away all he had upon becoming a millionaire, he never would have been able to become a billionaire, and give away the *billions* he has donated to charity
Ah, you mean the billions he has pretended to donate to charity to enhance Microsoft's position in the marketplace.
but that's beside my point, which is that saying Rossi is not pro-life based on your own pet definition is not conducive to reasonable communication.
I never claimed to be REASONABLE when it comes to protecting human life from conception until natural death. That's not something that is REASONABLE- it doesn't come from human reason, it comes from faith in God.
Why did you change from "I" to "we". If it's so fsking important to you, you defend that right at any cost,
We're all human- and should act like it. Part of being human is protecting the next generation from harm and being social. It's also important to you too- because without a consistent right to life, there's nothing to prevent somebody from aborting YOU now. Murder, War, Euthanasia, The Death Penalty, Abortion- it's all the same thing. Kill one person for excess profit that you'll never actually spend anyway- and you've already taken on the sin.
but don't ask "me" to. I don't remember ever signing up for that.
Because I believe EVERYBODY should be pro-life- you signed up for it by being born into a social species. Sorry about that- next life maybe you should be born as something that isn't social and doesn't interact with others of their own species.
Actually, wrong again. How stupid can you be? I'm actually a member of the Oregon Farm Bureau. In addition, I've lived on farms almost all of my life- save a 6 year stint going to college, which might as well have still been a farm since it was in Klamath Falls.
You're one of those urban utopian types who don't have a fucking clue and have probably never plowed a row of dirt, anywhere at all.
Wrong again- my parent's farm has several fields that I had to plow as a child. Today, though, I practice Permaculture instead- much less labor intensive, thus the profit/hours worked is much higher.
Really, it's a waste of time participating in a discussion with you. *Plonk*
Obvioiusly not for you- your mind is made up, can't confuse you with the FACTS.
I could be a Trotskyite, or a DeLeon Socialist, or any of the other many flavors and schisms of 'Marxism' which have erupted in the last century and more.
No, that would require you to read BOOKS, of which you have already stated is not worthwhile to you.
You're obviously a 'Utopian Socialist.'
Wrong again- I'm a technofascist.
Engels wrote a good essay that cut your drivel to bits over a century ago.
Not by my standards he isn't. Can't be a millionaire and still be truly pro-life; the guilt would get to you and you'd end up giving it all away to homes for unwed mothers (thus doing your own little part to reduce the abortion rate). No rich person is pro-life, regardless of what they say.
$17/hr. That's what they expect to pay for artwork done in 80-110 hour weeks. On the plus side- that many hours means you're pulling down $100,000 a year....
For only one race? And considering that Dino is a pro-choice businessman, not pro-life white trash, is it really even necessary? Yes, in the Pacific Northwest, we even breed our Republicans differently....
Since when does a "free market" exist when governments give special favors to corporations? That's better-defined as "fascism" or "crony capitalism".
I'd even go so far as to say that this is the natural demise of any free market system- once corporations hoard enough money, they can bribe politicians to give them special favors- and thus create the fascism. Since the free market by it's very definition has no regulations to prevent these parasites from gaining power, their rise is inevitable and a fatal flaw in the system.
economic efficiency -- everybody has their own sets of skills and abilities. Japanese people tend to do better-quality engineering than us Americans, for example, while French people make better food. And Americans seem more-competitive at building the businesses to do those things. Latin Americans have land that is fertile for fruits and vegetables (watermelons, for example), so they can produce those for more time than we in the U.S. can.
However, that efficiency has a tendency to put people out of work, thus removing people from participating in the economic system at all. Remember- for every person you put out of work, you've removed a consumer who can buy from you.
individual freedom -- I am freer to choose the way I live by having a choice between Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Toyota, Honda, BMW, etc. than I am by having the single state-owned carmaker, Volga (this was Russia's only automobile manufacturer they allowed the public to buy. Of course, top-level officials could have Mercedes instead, b/c they were "special"). Especially given that the Volga is a poorly-built car compared to all of the above, which have improved in quality due to Japanese competition.
But what if the Soviet Union had chosen distributionism instead of dictatorship as their form of communism? Then you'd have several thousand car makers to choose from, though you'd have an economic incentive to choose the one built by your next door neighbor since the shipping taxes on the others would be more excessive.
The trouble with government control of trade is, at least partly, the administrative costs that come with controlling trade. There is always a tax levied which raises the price of the product, which prevents people in the importing nation from buying as much of it as they otherwise could -- this is particularly-bad for poorer people who desire an inexpensive, quality product (like a cheap Toyota)... So, government involvement necessarily introduces a level of inefficiency -- a middleman between the trader and tradee. It's simply unavoidable.
But why is efficiency and profit the goal, instead of jobs for more people being the goal, or economic freedom from the employer-employee relationship being the goal? Why must we force the poorer people to buy imports at all, rather than enabling them to build what they need locally?
Free trade is one of those few things that a large majority (though not all - after all, we are talking about a random distribution of people whose thoughts necessarily differ, so you have to expect some extrema) economists agree is good for everybody.
And from what I've seen, the economists that agree with that have NO good reason for it, other than a near-religious worship of efficiency and profit over everything else. These same economists would argue that if it wasn't for government regulation, murder for hire would be a good thing merely because it is profitable.
In *true* communal systems -- yes. But *true* communism has never existed in reality, outside perhaps of Indian tribes (I'm not enough of an expert to comment on the economics of American Indian tribes prior to their practical elimination though; I just understand that they all shared their land, animals, harvests, etc. believing they were all part of a single, cooperative society).
I've done quite a bit of study of early communal systems, and I've found much to like in most of them. What existed in Rus
Several billion human brains represents a staggering amount of complexity. Therefore I don't think that reliable predictions of socio-economic behavior are possible in the forseeable future.
It is if you take the human brains out of the picture entirely- and turn over the daily decision making to AI expert systems.
Your argument closely follows the historical development of socialism - many advocates of state control of the economy called their system "scientific planning". The fact is, you can't plan and regulate a human system without making value judgements, and science can't help you with that.
Unix gives us a nice example of how to avoid the value judgements in resource allocation; it's completely translatable to the real world.
What is the optimal way to allocate spectrum?
Four dimensional FCFS stack, where the demensions are Frequency, Bandwidth, Power of Transmitter, and Time of Usage, obviously.
How can you justify your solution?
By not allowing politics into it- First Come, First Served, free for all.
What will you do to the people who disagree with you?
Up the error correction on the legitimate signal.
What recourse will you have when another political group wrests control over the allocations?
Can't be done if you put a computer instead of a human in charge- the computer isn't swayed by who has political control.
These problems are solvable merely by taking the HUMAN BRAINS out of the picture.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the problem. Nothing wrong with hoping for a nice present at Christmas. Nothing wrong dreaming about enjoying the nice present. However if you really *believe* that a white-bearded gentleman in a sleigh pulled by reindeer is going to come down your chimney to deliver it you are fucked.
In other words, you are a skeptic- and quite possibly a solipsist. Let me ask you this- are your senses perfect? Do you ever feel something, see something, taste something, or smell something that isn't there? How do you know that what you think is true, is true?
But you don't see mass-sterilization and prevention of somebody from bearing their own children against their own will as evil?
Exactly why I had #1 as well- that is obviously the WRONG path. And I was trolled into taking it.
On a completely-unrelated note, what do you think of non-Catholics?
There are 2 classes of non-Catholics:
1. Protestants- people who protest against what they see as the oppression of the church; and by extension, the oppression of Christ. These people have forgotten their own history- and as such are doomed to repeat it.
2. Pagans- who never knew Christ as Catholics know him- but who have other experiences with the devine. These people not only remember their history- they're often better human beings than we are. They're also quite often LEAVER societies instead of TAKER societies. As a rule- leaving human survival in the hands of God gives a freedom that capitalists and socialists can only dream about, but never achieve. We're too adicted to materialism for our own good.
Bullshit. Go read the history surrounding the Gutenberg printing press. Peoples' old jobs were indeed lost -- those who used to manually copy texts -- and they were re-employed into the field of implementing the printing press around the world.
Sorry- you misunderstood. This is a relatively new meme- only 160 years old. In Guttenberg's day, if they weren't printing, they could still farm. 98% of the people were needed just to survive. Thus the economical lessons of that time are not applicable to TODAY.
They benefited from having their hard, brainless work of manual copying done for them, and were freed to work on ensuring that greater volumes of books could be printed via the printing press. That is why it is now possible for virtually everybody on Earth to own at least a couple books (often the Bible, for which the printing press was originally invented to mass-produce), rather than an elite, well-educated aristocracy.
We were better off with the elite well educated aristocracy- at least they could think for themselves instead of worshiping economists who have nothing worthwhile to say about our time.
Because improved technology leads to increased complexity; increased complexity leads to increased amount of thought and work necessary to maintain the technology; and increased amounts of thought and work necessary to maintain that technology requires more people to do so.
And yet- there's no evidence that this is sustainable- or that ever increasing levels of technology will ALWAYS require more people. In fact, the lesson has been quite the opposite for the last 160 years if you look at the labor utilization rate of the United States. Once it was 100%- these days we're lucky if it hits 66%, and that's considered a boom time.
Your society takes us back to a neanderthal agrarian economy, in which we would not be having this conversation over the Internet because of your anti-Enlightenment economic system.
Not necessarily- it depends on which way we go with it, and how it is managed.
Your company, "Information-R-Us" (which, BTW, must not do much business, since you have absolutely *no* means for customers to contact you, assuming it's a legitimate business at all, rather than a front for your "anti-cyberterrorism toolkit" which may well be a grab-bag of remote Windows exploits), would not exist because things like LAN technology and DSL wouldn't be developed or in-use either, because after all -- they take away from people's livelihoods of producing books by-hand, live entertainment, etc..
It's actually an old business- and it wouldn't need to exist because I'd be profitably having my time engaged elsewhere. But that wouldn't necessarily be true either- you're thinking I want to wind back the clock, when in reality I want to move FORWARD with it.
Because of your fundamental misunderstanding on this subject, I again seriously doubt there is
A 2nd clarification: I've said where Marx went wrong- here's where Adam Smith went wrong:
1. Denial of religion- by embracing one of the seven deadly sins, Adam Smith denied morality as a motivator for human beings.
2. Lack of proper data gathering- while the Invisible Hand of the Market is very good at determining WANTS it's very bad at determining NEEDS- particularily of people who are unemployed or underemployed and thus denied entry into the market.
3. Lack of patience- Capitalism wants efficiency immediately, and will run you right over and pound you into the ground if you get in the way.
4. Centralization- by not putting any checks and balances on greed, mergers of corporations mean that in the end there can be only one mega-corporation- one board to rule them all, one board to find them, one board to bind them all and in the darkness profit from them.
Oddly enough, this doesn't change my recommendations AT ALL- the same 4 things are wrong, and the same set of decentralization methods will fix them.
The $17/hr figure is what I got when I divided a $100,000/year salary by 5720 hours; what a person would be working if they were constantly working 110 hour weeks with no vacations.
How can a theology be both animistic *and* Roman Catholic? Animism is a heresy. Ask the Pope.
Even heresies, the Church has learned over the centuries, often contain much truth. More than 75% of Martin Luther's complaints, to take a recent example, are now Canon Law.
The example from animism is this: Take what you need- and what God gives- but no more. Moderation is key- extremes are bad. That's true in Roman Catholicism and in animism- and speaks to what has gone wrong with corporatism.
And what is "ultimate survival"?
A good example to me is why the Church is against Euthanasia- ultimately, we must leave our survival up to God, and not take our own life or the lives of others.
Native Americans hunted game for food, built shelters, made clothes - they looked after themselves like human beings do.
Yes, they did- and there's nothing wrong with this. What goes wrong is when we let one deadly sin rule over all else- Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth. Primative tribes (not just Native Americans) understood this- do you?
And if your mind is so open as to find the good in Nazism then you'll believe anything.
And what is wrong with belief, may I ask? What is wrong with having hopes and dreams?
How much Marx have you read, by the way?
Enough to know the four places he went wrong:
1. Denial of religion. For without moral values, sharing ceases to be a virtue.
2. Lack of proper data gathering. Without knowing the wants and needs of the population, over production and under production is inevitable
3. Lack of patience- the technology wasn't ready for what he was proposing at the time- agricultural science was just begining to prove itself, and 98% of the population was still required to work on the farms for the society to eat. A far cry from today when our main economic problem is a surplus of labor.
4. Centralization- this is the worst mistake he made, and it's a mistake that is being duplicated today in corporatism and centralized stock markets under so-called "capitalistic" countries.
My current recomendation is a very light touch- $1/mile shipping tax on standard 40' shipping containers (to slow down globalism and pay for the environmental damage that globalism causes), 1% increase in corporate income taxes (to pay for permaculture grants worldwide), and a reasonable maximum wage law tied to a certain percentage of the minimum wage- at least 1000%, but maybe 10000%, since our culture is far more complex than ancient Greece. This is enough to encourage standard market forces to become more moral- no more central planning needs be done than that. With less interferance from multinational corporations, local populations doing local planning can take care of the rest- and are more likely to have unified religious values, less complex data gathering requirements, and a better knowledge and wish to care for the local environment as well.
The three things you're missing in all of this:
1. I've gotten trolled- we've trolled each other. Because of that, I've strayed from the basic idea of distributionism- that all that is required for central planning to build a group of localized communist and capitalist utopias is a tax on shipping to prevent large corporations and greedy individuals from grabing more market share than they deserve.
2. I believe it is our DUTY as human beings to fight against evil, not co-operate with it- that freedom to do evil is worthless. That's why the carrot is so unappealing to me.
3. Finally- see my presidential campaign blog on Technocrat (there's a link in my journal)- I no longer believe labor to be necessary to a prosperous society. That has been becoming more true every year for 160 years now- and in the next 20 it will lead to 80% unemployment in the United States. Thus, encouraging people to do EXTRA, to do a good job, is no longer a good thing for society as a whole- every little extra thing you do is taking away a job from somebody else. This is particularily true under corporate globalism- but would have happened anyway once our technology reached the point where human labor was no longer necessary to survive.
Yes- I contradict myself often because I'm still unsure which is the best way to go. I also have a great fear that the default will be what I've already described- a small number of corporations owning everything- because that's the road we're already on.
Really? We've replaced 1 communist dictator with 1 multinational corporation?
There is only 1 multinational corporation in America? Really?
Not yet- but the process is accelerating, and in the end, there can be only one. That's what competition where the competitors are allowed to cheat ALWAYS ends up. The only question remaining will be if that one is a government of, by, and for the people- or a government of, by, and for profit. I hope it's the former- but that hope is quickly dying. The mergers are happening- and there are Japanese on the board of directors of Ford. It's not just America that will be ruled by the one- it's the entire world.
The regulation of monopolies and other distasteful business variants (ones with racist owners, etc.) is called "the consumer."
Trouble is you have to buy from *someone*- so anything the oligarchy all decides is right to do, will be done industry-wide.
There's one other factor you've ignored: that politicians, as government agents, should not accept corporate bribes. The sole responsibility of the corporation is to turn a profit for its shareholders; that's it. One should expect corporations to try to buy off politicians. But we expect politicians to rise above such things -- and as you note, they have not.
The problem as I see it is this- even campaigns are expected to turn a profit these days, for the advertisers if nobody else- and that costs one heck of a lot of money. Something like a half a billion was raised for our recent presidential election- that money had to come from somewhere, and bribes are the most profitable way to raise the money.
But that (supposedly) takes away jobs, which you've already said is a problem with capitalism
Automation certainly does- to some extent- take away jobs. However, while this is a problem in capitalism, it's NOT a problem in communism- because if your basic needs are taken care of you don't necessarily NEED a steady job to survive.
Rather than centralize power with 1 government, we decentralize it to a few large businesses or many smaller businesses, depending on the whims of the marketplace. In the U.S., many are content to go to Wal-Mart rather than Mom-n-Pop-Shop. Wal-Mart, then, is not evil enough to drive those customers away, and hence, the market accepts them...
And thus we end up loosing freedom.
You mean to tell me there's no competition between Ford, Dodge, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, etc. etc.?
You picked a couple of bad examples for your side here- not only is there very little competition left among auto manufacturers, they even share factories these days. An Escort rolling off the line one car- a Turcel rolling off the line the next car- same car, different sticker.
Or that there is no competition between Visa, Mastercard, Discover, AMEX, etc.?
Not that I can tell- they all offer the same high rates and are owned by the same people. About 50 people own all of the banking industry worldwide, when you get right down to it. And only about 25 are Americans.
Look at the automobile manufacturers. Compare the quality of those manufacturers from 1980 onwards and look at the number of problems per 100 cars. Consumer Reports does this, and they show a *dramatic* drop in problems after Japanese competition was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, American cars even beat out European cars in overall quality, though both still lag far-behind those of the Japanese. So clearly there is lots of competition in the automobile market.
No- what that proves is that the Japanese bought out the American companies and are running the American factories in a Japanese fashion.
At best, you can argue your case within specific industries -- software, for example, in which MSFT dominates, or mainframes, in which IBM is the only player left (after decades of competition). But in other industries, your over-broad brush stroke is painting outside the lines of factual basis.
You've yet to provide an example. So I will- AFAIK, electric vehicles, as opposed to gas automobiles, is still not mature enough to end up in this model. But let's not forget that my full timeline DOES require decades of competition first- before a corporation accumulates enough money and power to give campaign contributions to politicians in return for laws that keep other players out of the market.
Even if your argument were based in reality, riddle me this: if you have several competing companies trying to get their own version of laws passed, then those versions compete w/ each other. Sun wants laws against monopolies
No, you do not. Sell your computer and give the money to charity, and then we can start talking.
Did that a long time ago- what computers I own that are worth selling (not every computer has value anymore- the majority of mine are homebrews from scrounged parts that nobody would WANT to buy- that in fact, they paid me for hauling off). The one I'm typing on right now I don't own.
Sorry, I really don't understand what you mean. In what sense were they *leavers*?
Actually, most human civilizations have been leavers- only three strains have been takers, and the taker culture has a tendency to be viral, taking up all available territory. The terminology comes from Daniel Quinn, a science fiction writer big into ecology- but I found out just last night that the basic theology behind it is both animistic and Roman Catholic. Leavers leave their ultimate survival in the hands of God- or the gods- or the spirits- basically in the hands of external forces. Takers, on the other hand, take control of their own survival, and the survival of their neighbors and friends.
As to marxism, I don't care what your second name is. Suppose I call myself Nazi Benefactor. Is that alright?
Perfectly fine- after all, Nazism in it's pure form is a type of being a benefactor. I'd just assume that you're using the second world to modify the first; and thus you aren't the type of Nazi looking to scapegoat and kill Jews, but instead you're the type of National Socialist that merges the power of the corporation with the power of government to provide some benefit to the people. That's what I mean by keeping an open mind.
When did you stop beating your mother?
:-) Back to the point though- or at least my point- I don't hold with hypocricy for any reason.
When I was born- it was a lot harder to do it from the OUTSIDE!
Actually, you have done precisely that.
How so? I give as much as I possibly can to Fr. Taft- and his homes for unwed mothers.
By your own standard, you are certainly hypocritical.
Really? Once again, how so? Making something illegal doesn't reduce a practice- it only turns the people that do that into criminals. I'd be happy to have even 3x the taxes I currently pay- making me earn nothing- if I could be guaranteed such a right to life for everybody. Can you Republicans say the same? I challenge you to live up to that level of respect for human life!
I got the figure by taking the salary and the maximum hours worked in a week and dividing.
I don't care what you are. "Pro-life" and "pro-choice" commonly refer to beliefs about abortion.
And somebody who says they believe in something and then does nothing about it is what?
Whatever you want those words to "really" mean is irrelevant, and saying Rossi -- also Catholic -- is not pro-life based on your unclarified redefinition is stupid.
Hey, I'm not the one who's being hypocritical, claiming to be pro-life and then refusing to do everything possible to reduce abortion.
Your ideas behind those redefinitions are stupid too -- if Bill Gates gave away all he had upon becoming a millionaire, he never would have been able to become a billionaire, and give away the *billions* he has donated to charity
Ah, you mean the billions he has pretended to donate to charity to enhance Microsoft's position in the marketplace.
but that's beside my point, which is that saying Rossi is not pro-life based on your own pet definition is not conducive to reasonable communication.
I never claimed to be REASONABLE when it comes to protecting human life from conception until natural death. That's not something that is REASONABLE- it doesn't come from human reason, it comes from faith in God.
Why did you change from "I" to "we". If it's so fsking important to you, you defend that right at any cost,
We're all human- and should act like it. Part of being human is protecting the next generation from harm and being social. It's also important to you too- because without a consistent right to life, there's nothing to prevent somebody from aborting YOU now. Murder, War, Euthanasia, The Death Penalty, Abortion- it's all the same thing. Kill one person for excess profit that you'll never actually spend anyway- and you've already taken on the sin.
but don't ask "me" to. I don't remember ever signing up for that.
Because I believe EVERYBODY should be pro-life- you signed up for it by being born into a social species. Sorry about that- next life maybe you should be born as something that isn't social and doesn't interact with others of their own species.
Have to be POOR to be pro-life white trash- otherwise there's INTERNAL hypocricy going on.
You don't live on a farm.
Actually, wrong again. How stupid can you be? I'm actually a member of the Oregon Farm Bureau. In addition, I've lived on farms almost all of my life- save a 6 year stint going to college, which might as well have still been a farm since it was in Klamath Falls.
You're one of those urban utopian types who don't have a fucking clue and have probably never plowed a row of dirt, anywhere at all.
Wrong again- my parent's farm has several fields that I had to plow as a child. Today, though, I practice Permaculture instead- much less labor intensive, thus the profit/hours worked is much higher.
Really, it's a waste of time participating in a discussion with you. *Plonk*
Obvioiusly not for you- your mind is made up, can't confuse you with the FACTS.
You have friends?
Many
And what makes you think I am a 'conservative'?
Your anti-intellectual attitude.
I could be a Trotskyite, or a DeLeon Socialist, or any of the other many flavors and schisms of 'Marxism' which have erupted in the last century and more.
No, that would require you to read BOOKS, of which you have already stated is not worthwhile to you.
You're obviously a 'Utopian Socialist.'
Wrong again- I'm a technofascist.
Engels wrote a good essay that cut your drivel to bits over a century ago.
Engels didn't have computers available. Next?
No, I'm a CATHOLIC- I believe in the right to life from conception until natural death- and that we should support that right at any cost.
Not by my standards he isn't. Can't be a millionaire and still be truly pro-life; the guilt would get to you and you'd end up giving it all away to homes for unwed mothers (thus doing your own little part to reduce the abortion rate). No rich person is pro-life, regardless of what they say.
$17/hr. That's what they expect to pay for artwork done in 80-110 hour weeks. On the plus side- that many hours means you're pulling down $100,000 a year....
For only one race? And considering that Dino is a pro-choice businessman, not pro-life white trash, is it really even necessary? Yes, in the Pacific Northwest, we even breed our Republicans differently....
Sounds to me like Kerry could finance it from the unused portion of his warchest alone.
They used to- then I couldn't afford the $2299/year charge anymore.
Not sure if they've got another arm for desktop stuff though.
Since when does a "free market" exist when governments give special favors to corporations? That's better-defined as "fascism" or "crony capitalism".
I'd even go so far as to say that this is the natural demise of any free market system- once corporations hoard enough money, they can bribe politicians to give them special favors- and thus create the fascism. Since the free market by it's very definition has no regulations to prevent these parasites from gaining power, their rise is inevitable and a fatal flaw in the system.
economic efficiency -- everybody has their own sets of skills and abilities. Japanese people tend to do better-quality engineering than us Americans, for example, while French people make better food. And Americans seem more-competitive at building the businesses to do those things. Latin Americans have land that is fertile for fruits and vegetables (watermelons, for example), so they can produce those for more time than we in the U.S. can.
However, that efficiency has a tendency to put people out of work, thus removing people from participating in the economic system at all. Remember- for every person you put out of work, you've removed a consumer who can buy from you.
individual freedom -- I am freer to choose the way I live by having a choice between Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Toyota, Honda, BMW, etc. than I am by having the single state-owned carmaker, Volga (this was Russia's only automobile manufacturer they allowed the public to buy. Of course, top-level officials could have Mercedes instead, b/c they were "special"). Especially given that the Volga is a poorly-built car compared to all of the above, which have improved in quality due to Japanese competition.
But what if the Soviet Union had chosen distributionism instead of dictatorship as their form of communism? Then you'd have several thousand car makers to choose from, though you'd have an economic incentive to choose the one built by your next door neighbor since the shipping taxes on the others would be more excessive.
The trouble with government control of trade is, at least partly, the administrative costs that come with controlling trade. There is always a tax levied which raises the price of the product, which prevents people in the importing nation from buying as much of it as they otherwise could -- this is particularly-bad for poorer people who desire an inexpensive, quality product (like a cheap Toyota)... So, government involvement necessarily introduces a level of inefficiency -- a middleman between the trader and tradee. It's simply unavoidable.
But why is efficiency and profit the goal, instead of jobs for more people being the goal, or economic freedom from the employer-employee relationship being the goal? Why must we force the poorer people to buy imports at all, rather than enabling them to build what they need locally?
Free trade is one of those few things that a large majority (though not all - after all, we are talking about a random distribution of people whose thoughts necessarily differ, so you have to expect some extrema) economists agree is good for everybody.
And from what I've seen, the economists that agree with that have NO good reason for it, other than a near-religious worship of efficiency and profit over everything else. These same economists would argue that if it wasn't for government regulation, murder for hire would be a good thing merely because it is profitable.
In *true* communal systems -- yes. But *true* communism has never existed in reality, outside perhaps of Indian tribes (I'm not enough of an expert to comment on the economics of American Indian tribes prior to their practical elimination though; I just understand that they all shared their land, animals, harvests, etc. believing they were all part of a single, cooperative society).
I've done quite a bit of study of early communal systems, and I've found much to like in most of them. What existed in Rus
Several billion human brains represents a staggering amount of complexity. Therefore I don't think that reliable predictions of socio-economic behavior are possible in the forseeable future.
It is if you take the human brains out of the picture entirely- and turn over the daily decision making to AI expert systems.
Your argument closely follows the historical development of socialism - many advocates of state control of the economy called their system "scientific planning". The fact is, you can't plan and regulate a human system without making value judgements, and science can't help you with that.
Unix gives us a nice example of how to avoid the value judgements in resource allocation; it's completely translatable to the real world.
What is the optimal way to allocate spectrum?
Four dimensional FCFS stack, where the demensions are Frequency, Bandwidth, Power of Transmitter, and Time of Usage, obviously.
How can you justify your solution?
By not allowing politics into it- First Come, First Served, free for all.
What will you do to the people who disagree with you?
Up the error correction on the legitimate signal.
What recourse will you have when another political group wrests control over the allocations?
Can't be done if you put a computer instead of a human in charge- the computer isn't swayed by who has political control.
These problems are solvable merely by taking the HUMAN BRAINS out of the picture.