It's not just ships, it's any organization. Someone has to be in charge. You can't have an organization where everyone can just do whatever they want; nothing would get done.
Does "the majority" want a smart phone, or a feature phone?
A smart phone (obviously), but the point is that very few people are going to worry about having ten or a hundred of them.
There is not an unlimited desire for stuff except with the ultra rich who substitute buying a new, bigger yacht with achieving something useful and enjoying life.
A correction, the majority of people do not have "ever increasing unlimited desires and wants", only a tiny minority.
Yeah, right. Everyone wouldn't want their own starship, if they lived in a 'post-scarcity' Star Trek society. People would just be lining up to be Redshirts, rather than starship captains.
Back in the real world, the left just have no imagination.
No, a lot of people wouldn't want to be either a Redshirt or a starship captain.
The point of post-scarcity is that you wouldn't have to do ANY job just to get the basics of food, shelter, entertainment and so on. Some people would be redshirts the same way some people volunteer to be infantry soldiers now: they like the getting fit, looking good in a uniform and fighting baddies parts. Some would be psychologically unfit for the responsibility of commanding a starship, just like not everyone now would make a good Aircraft Carrier captain.
Many people would choose just to stay at home, play video games or read or watch porn, and get drunk, which also seems fine to me.
It is the right who have no imagination beyond striving at a probably unsuitable career.
2. People have ever increasing unlimited desires and wants
1. is an observation of reality, not some immutable law of the universe and 2. is simply not true for most people. Once you get past a fairly low level of material comfort (decent housing, clothing, food, access to culture and education) having more stuff stops being any sort of motivating force.
The exception to this are psychopaths like Larry Ellison, who appear to function only in relation to how much they can fuck other people over, and who in a decently ordered society would be given his own desert island and left alone.
This is why Communist economies fail, the information the central planners need to make economic decisions does not exist under Communism, as prices can only be accurately created by free market exchange.
Communism does not necessarily require heavy handed central planning as in the USSR. You can easily conceive of a system of local free market trading, but simply without capitalists being allowed to accumulate personal wealth at the expense of the community.
I'm sure you're right, but having an historical explanation for how something now seen as stupid developed doesn't stop it now being seen as stupid, and doesn't mean it's incapable of change.
According to standardised testing to which I was periodically subjected throughout K-12 I would be considered below average at best. Based on the career I chose and my cognitive abilities I am a top performer. Standardised testing is only good for identifying which people are good little test takers.
You forgot to mention how having self-diagnosed ADHD/Asperger's made you disruptive at school because the lessons were too easy and the teachers couldn't handle your frightening intellect.
The simple measure for people is to look at the wealth of those involved. If the people pushing this stuff were altruistic and worried about fair distribution, they would not be gaining wealth, but either maintaining or reducing their massive stockpiles. In all cases their wealth increases, and not by just a little bit. They didn't get it worrying about fairness, and don't continue to amass wealth by worrying at all about society.
When you start off with as much money as Bill Gates, it's pretty much impossible to stop it increasing unless you literally take it out of the bank in cash and hide it under your (very large) mattress. And burn a load each day.
If you have $79billion in the bank you will be earning a few billion a year without doing anything.
Homeopathy, like any other "alternative" medicine (Chinese powdered tiger bollocks, acupuncture, crystal therapy, praying to god) does work, but it's entirely through the placebo effect.
Don't forget the insurance. One mistake, even a purely accidental one or a malicious one from a third party, and the lawsuits can bankrupt such a group in moments. I'm old enough to remember the thalidomide birth defects, and the malicious poisoning of Tylenol. The manufacturers of both drugs were _horrified_ at these tragedies, and did their best to protect the public after the problems were discovered.
The Thalidomide tragedy was caused primarily by inadequte testing. The "horrified" drugs manufacturers spun out compensation claims for decades.
It is a very bad example to use if you're trying to provoke sympathy for big drug companies.
The idea of stealing land from nomads is oxymoronic.
No it's not. If you take the land they used to freely wander over, fence it off and call it private property, you have taken away their right to use it, which is theft.
Where does America identify as a democracy and not a republic? Hell, read the pledge of allegiance if you want. I can't really think of any official declarations stating that the US is a democracy - we're a representative democracy I suppose but hardly a true democracy. I imagine even Fox News viewers know this.
There are no current "true democracies" in the Ancient Athenian sense. They're all representative democracies in one form or another.
Welfare systems predate socialism by thousands of years
Those pre-socialist welfare systems were more like emergency charity relief than societal entitlements.
The universal availability of health care, unemployment benefit, old age pensions and so on for everybody paid out of universal progressive taxation is quite explicitly a socialist idea.
Now a lot of socialists will tell you that "the people" own the means of production and vote on what the prices of goods will be, but in reality it almost never ends up that way; it's usually governed by political leaders who claim to represent "the people" but never do and just grant themselves favors, and silence anybody who opposes them.
It is perfectly possible to have democratic socialism, e.g. Britain after the Second World War voted in a truly progressive Labour government. The idea that it inevitably produces tyrants is because pretty much all countries where communism/socialism have been tried were not democratic to start with and had no democratic culture or infrastructure (Russia, China, Cuba, wherever)..
Capitalism means a free market economy, and a free market simply means that prices are determined by the forces of supply and demand.
Unfortunately, capitalism is inherently opposed to a true free market economy, since it allows some people a large unearned advantage (being born rich by inheriting capital). It also encourages the development of monopolies and cartels, in the absence of government "interference".
In a theoretically pure free market, everyone competes on equal terms.
Of course, theoretical pure free markets are jsut that - theoretical.
At least, this is what has happened to every single commune to ever exist anyways. The only ones to have emerged from that rut eventually just returned to full blown capitalism.
I don't think any countries have "pure" laissez faire capitalism. Most have some mixture of capitalism and socialism (in the sense that things like universal pensions, welfare, sick benefits, corporate taxation, health and safety laws, trade union rights and so on are socialist in origin).
The ones with the least amount of socialism are places like Somalia.
It's rent seeking if you expect to make some capital, sit on it, and appoint yourself local land baron to collect rents without actually performing further work.
For a lot of us, this goes against basic work ethic and social contract assumptions. We think you should be compensated for new work/value you produce and stop being compensated as soon as your work stops, just like it goes for the rest of us. It's an unfortunate side effect of capitalism that capital seems to move beyond being a temporary store of value and turns into a permanent lever to exploit all who come later.
Capitalism is all about accumulating capital, it's not some unfortunate side effect.
Unless you tax surpluses at 100%, I don't see how you can stop companies piling up capital.
From what I could tell, college was all about keeping the students interested enough to enroll next semester. I was teaching my professors things that they didn't know, like GUI programming, while they were teaching me things like: "it's better to look like you know what you're doing than actually know something."
That just proves you went to a crappy college then.
Slashdot Mirror
You must not be from the US, or missed the whole "2 party system".
We americans seem to have a heavy dose of "If A, then not B" in our politics. There is no C.
The problem with the US system is that A and B are very similar. It's not like pure communism vs. pure capitalism or anything.
It's not just ships, it's any organization. Someone has to be in charge. You can't have an organization where everyone can just do whatever they want; nothing would get done.
Fascist!
Even Larry Ellison has a limit to how much he wants
There is little evidence for that statement. People like him are the exception that proves the rule.
Does "the majority" want a smart phone, or a feature phone?
A smart phone (obviously), but the point is that very few people are going to worry about having ten or a hundred of them.
There is not an unlimited desire for stuff except with the ultra rich who substitute buying a new, bigger yacht with achieving something useful and enjoying life.
A correction, the majority of people do not have "ever increasing unlimited desires and wants", only a tiny minority.
Yeah, right. Everyone wouldn't want their own starship, if they lived in a 'post-scarcity' Star Trek society. People would just be lining up to be Redshirts, rather than starship captains.
Back in the real world, the left just have no imagination.
No, a lot of people wouldn't want to be either a Redshirt or a starship captain.
The point of post-scarcity is that you wouldn't have to do ANY job just to get the basics of food, shelter, entertainment and so on. Some people would be redshirts the same way some people volunteer to be infantry soldiers now: they like the getting fit, looking good in a uniform and fighting baddies parts. Some would be psychologically unfit for the responsibility of commanding a starship, just like not everyone now would make a good Aircraft Carrier captain.
Many people would choose just to stay at home, play video games or read or watch porn, and get drunk, which also seems fine to me.
It is the right who have no imagination beyond striving at a probably unsuitable career.
The PD was a plot device, nothing more.
The word is McGuffin, I believe.
But the two fundamental rules of economics are:
1. We are in a universe of scarcity
2. People have ever increasing unlimited desires and wants
1. is an observation of reality, not some immutable law of the universe and 2. is simply not true for most people. Once you get past a fairly low level of material comfort (decent housing, clothing, food, access to culture and education) having more stuff stops being any sort of motivating force.
The exception to this are psychopaths like Larry Ellison, who appear to function only in relation to how much they can fuck other people over, and who in a decently ordered society would be given his own desert island and left alone.
This is why Communist economies fail, the information the central planners need to make economic decisions does not exist under Communism, as prices can only be accurately created by free market exchange.
Communism does not necessarily require heavy handed central planning as in the USSR. You can easily conceive of a system of local free market trading, but simply without capitalists being allowed to accumulate personal wealth at the expense of the community.
I'm sure you're right, but having an historical explanation for how something now seen as stupid developed doesn't stop it now being seen as stupid, and doesn't mean it's incapable of change.
According to standardised testing to which I was periodically subjected throughout K-12 I would be considered below average at best. Based on the career I chose and my cognitive abilities I am a top performer. Standardised testing is only good for identifying which people are good little test takers.
You forgot to mention how having self-diagnosed ADHD/Asperger's made you disruptive at school because the lessons were too easy and the teachers couldn't handle your frightening intellect.
The simple measure for people is to look at the wealth of those involved. If the people pushing this stuff were altruistic and worried about fair distribution, they would not be gaining wealth, but either maintaining or reducing their massive stockpiles. In all cases their wealth increases, and not by just a little bit. They didn't get it worrying about fairness, and don't continue to amass wealth by worrying at all about society. When you start off with as much money as Bill Gates, it's pretty much impossible to stop it increasing unless you literally take it out of the bank in cash and hide it under your (very large) mattress. And burn a load each day.
If you have $79billion in the bank you will be earning a few billion a year without doing anything.
Homeopathy, like any other "alternative" medicine (Chinese powdered tiger bollocks, acupuncture, crystal therapy, praying to god) does work, but it's entirely through the placebo effect.
Don't forget the insurance. One mistake, even a purely accidental one or a malicious one from a third party, and the lawsuits can bankrupt such a group in moments. I'm old enough to remember the thalidomide birth defects, and the malicious poisoning of Tylenol. The manufacturers of both drugs were _horrified_ at these tragedies, and did their best to protect the public after the problems were discovered.
The Thalidomide tragedy was caused primarily by inadequte testing. The "horrified" drugs manufacturers spun out compensation claims for decades.
It is a very bad example to use if you're trying to provoke sympathy for big drug companies.
The idea of stealing land from nomads is oxymoronic.
No it's not. If you take the land they used to freely wander over, fence it off and call it private property, you have taken away their right to use it, which is theft.
It comes down to how people value their money, and they value it less when it's just given to them.
That's just something you work ethic guys say to make yourselves feel happier when you're working regular fourteen hour days with no holidays allowed.
Personally, if I have enough money to get happily drunk on a few of bottles of wine, I don't give a toss where it came from.
Where does America identify as a democracy and not a republic? Hell, read the pledge of allegiance if you want. I can't really think of any official declarations stating that the US is a democracy - we're a representative democracy I suppose but hardly a true democracy. I imagine even Fox News viewers know this.
There are no current "true democracies" in the Ancient Athenian sense. They're all representative democracies in one form or another.
Good troll mate.
Welfare systems predate socialism by thousands of years
Those pre-socialist welfare systems were more like emergency charity relief than societal entitlements.
The universal availability of health care, unemployment benefit, old age pensions and so on for everybody paid out of universal progressive taxation is quite explicitly a socialist idea.
Now a lot of socialists will tell you that "the people" own the means of production and vote on what the prices of goods will be, but in reality it almost never ends up that way; it's usually governed by political leaders who claim to represent "the people" but never do and just grant themselves favors, and silence anybody who opposes them.
It is perfectly possible to have democratic socialism, e.g. Britain after the Second World War voted in a truly progressive Labour government. The idea that it inevitably produces tyrants is because pretty much all countries where communism/socialism have been tried were not democratic to start with and had no democratic culture or infrastructure (Russia, China, Cuba, wherever)..
Capitalism means a free market economy, and a free market simply means that prices are determined by the forces of supply and demand.
Unfortunately, capitalism is inherently opposed to a true free market economy, since it allows some people a large unearned advantage (being born rich by inheriting capital). It also encourages the development of monopolies and cartels, in the absence of government "interference".
In a theoretically pure free market, everyone competes on equal terms.
Of course, theoretical pure free markets are jsut that - theoretical.
At least, this is what has happened to every single commune to ever exist anyways. The only ones to have emerged from that rut eventually just returned to full blown capitalism.
I don't think any countries have "pure" laissez faire capitalism. Most have some mixture of capitalism and socialism (in the sense that things like universal pensions, welfare, sick benefits, corporate taxation, health and safety laws, trade union rights and so on are socialist in origin).
The ones with the least amount of socialism are places like Somalia.
It's rent seeking if you expect to make some capital, sit on it, and appoint yourself local land baron to collect rents without actually performing further work.
For a lot of us, this goes against basic work ethic and social contract assumptions. We think you should be compensated for new work/value you produce and stop being compensated as soon as your work stops, just like it goes for the rest of us. It's an unfortunate side effect of capitalism that capital seems to move beyond being a temporary store of value and turns into a permanent lever to exploit all who come later.
Capitalism is all about accumulating capital, it's not some unfortunate side effect.
Unless you tax surpluses at 100%, I don't see how you can stop companies piling up capital.
Oh, and your "basic work ethic" idea is cute.
Oh right, in fact you were just another script kiddie with no idea of the consequences of their actions.
What you learn in school is _accounting_, i.e. the kind of very basic mathematics a merchant may need.
And similarly, you only learn basic French, German, History, Geography, English Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Amazingly enough, you can't fit in eight full PhDs worth of learning by the time you're 16.
From what I could tell, college was all about keeping the students interested enough to enroll next semester. I was teaching my professors things that they didn't know, like GUI programming, while they were teaching me things like: "it's better to look like you know what you're doing than actually know something."
That just proves you went to a crappy college then.