Who'd you vote for?

[BHX]

Yeah I used to think he was nuts too, until I saw that everything he has ever said has started to be fact and come to fruition. They even said on CNN, if the people didn't vote then Congress would elect the President and Vice President. That to me shows that the election is just a dog and pony show for our benefit to make us feel like we are picking the winner.

[LB]

There was a post about abortion earlier. Thankyou for deleting it. It is a subject I prefer not to talk about because there's no good answer, and anything I say will make people angry. That is all; resume normal conversation.

[Cheraphy]

I don't care what you say, taxing the rich to help fund increased spending on welfare programs for the poor is socialism, he takes it to extremes

I don't care what you say. Establishing public education, government run police and fire stations, government run regulation of food, water, and transportation is Socialism. And this country is taking it to extremes. Obama is no more a socialist than every president before him.

Either way, I'm moving to Australia

Enjoy your universal health care, compulsory voting, ban on guns and the death penalty, and taxing that is significantly steeper than that in the US.

Time and time again we see socialism implemented, shortly followed by a downward spiral of that country. Why then do we embrace it now?

Shortly followed by a downward spiral? Tell that to the entirety of Scandinavia. Ya know, that area of Europe that's collectively doing better than the rest of the continent with arguably the most socialist economy. Oh also to all the countries that recovered faster after recessions and depressions than those that are closer to implementing Austrian economics.

. I believe the way the trickle down system is implemented now is broken, but nothing works when you use it wrong. As a whole, the theory works, we're just doing it wrong.

Communism looks great in theory. But it has a serious fundemental flaw. It requires you to invest all of your power in a very select few and trust that they will not abuse it.

Trickle down economics looks great in theory. But it has a serious fundamental flaw. It requires you to invest all you can in a very select few and trust they will use it to help you too.

[prototype151]

Lol,

I knew this thread was going to be posted.

I don't really feel like commenting on the subject... but I am just going to say, all of you people arguing about the U.S. being a democratic or republic country... it's neither... and it's both... it's a democratic republic.

[ModShop]

Cheraphy wrote:

I don't care what you say. Establishing public education, government run police and fire stations, government run regulation of food, water, and transportation is Socialism. And this country is taking it to extremes. Obama is no more a socialist than every president before him.

I disagree, he has many more socialistic views than a lot of other presidents. Socialism in its entirety is not bad when used in proper balance with capitalism. I think Obama is pushing that balance. Of course you seem to have a different perception of where this balance really is, so we must agree to disagree.

Cheraphy wrote:

Trickle down economics looks great in theory. But it has a serious fundamental flaw. It requires you to invest all you can in a very select few and trust they will use it to help you too.

Nothing is perfect, not capitalism, not socialism, not democracy, not monarchy, nothing. That is why taking a middle road is better than going too far either way. Pure trickle down is of course not going to work, but neither is purely investing in small businesses where ~50% are bound to fail, and many more just barely get by. There needs to be a balance. The same can be said for pretty much everything that has been argued on this thread. Too much of anything is never a good thing.

Cheraphy wrote:

Enjoy your universal health care, compulsory voting, ban on guns and the death penalty, and taxing that is significantly steeper than that in the US.

I was joking, I'm not going anywhere. I merely picked Australia because I've never actually heard anything bad (or good, but kangaroos sound awesome) about it (even in a 2 year world history class I took, we didn't cover Australia). Besides, the U.S. government is doing all it can to ban guns (such as making certain firing modes and ammo illegal) without actually banning guns. We have the death penalty too, not that it matters because I'm not a felon (nor do I associate with those who would frame me).

[chrisname]

ModShop wrote:

I merely picked Australia because I've never actually heard anything bad

Australia has less games than the PS3, if you ignore censored ones.

nor do I associate with those who would frame me

It's pretty naive to think that that makes you immune.

Ceraphy wrote:

Communism looks great in theory. But it has a serious fundemental flaw. It requires you to invest all of your power in a very select few and trust that they will not abuse it.

Not so. Marxism is based around the idea of popular revolution from below, leading to a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (working class). At first, humans lived in tribes as nomads. This is referred to as primitive communism because everything was shared, including power. It was replaced by a slave state, which was followed by feudalism, where there was the ruling aristocracy above, the subservient bourgeoisie below them, and the proletariat at the bottom. This led to dissent which led to outright revolution: the middle class (the bourgeoisie) replaced the aristocracy as the ruling class and established a capitalist society. Marx believed this would lead to further discontent as the proletariat came to realise that the bourgeoisie were exploiting them exactly as the aristocrats had before, and that there would be another popular revolution where the proletarians would overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish a socialist workers' state. This would slowly evolve into "pure communism", where the state would be dissolved. Marx predicted that the capitalist society in England would be overthrown sometime after the industrial revolution. Needless to say it didn't happen. Anyway, the point of all this is that Marxism is based on popular revolt, where the majority take power from the minority.

Marxism-Leninism (aka Bolshevism) is a modified version to allow a minority group (in this case, the Bolsheviks (Bolshevik actually means minority; the Social Democratic Labour Party split into Bolsheviks (who supported Marxism-Leninism) and Mensheviks (who believed in pure Marxism)) to unilaterally seize power and overthrow the Bourgeois. It also allowed a very short Bourgeois stage (from February to October 1917 in Russia's case), which Marxism stated would last for a long time.

The point being, you're talking about Marxism-Leninism, which more-or-less died with Lenin. Also, I don't think pure communism is great in theory. Socialism is great in theory, and in practice (look at how well Norway is doing with its combination of socialism and capitalism).

[ModShop]

chrisname wrote:

combination of socialism and capitalism

Exactly.

chrisname wrote:

It's pretty naive to think that that makes you immune.

True true, but it helps. Besides, I'm a programmer and gamer, most people don't even know I exist :p Maybe if I left the house more...

chrisname wrote:

Australia has less games than the PS3, if you ignore censored ones.

And I'm out, haha. I imagine the same s true for Xbox then. I guess I'll just start my own country on some remote island.

[BHX]

Yeah, Australia banned quite a few of the games the US received. Can't recall what ones, but I remember a huge article on them a while back. US may suck government and job wise, but thank God for games!

[ModShop]

Lets all agree that the world would be better with no governments and only a bunch of people (read: everyone) sitting around eating junk food and gaming together. It'd be pure socialism, but it would work because everyone would be doing it and benefiting from it. Not that anyone would care enough to pause longer than it takes to go pee anyways.

[z05DSL3A]

ModShop wrote:

Lets all agree that the world would be better with no governments and only a bunch of people (read: everyone) sitting around eating junk food and gaming together.

Sounds good...Who's going to deliver the junk food?

It'd be pure socialism, but it would work because everyone would be doing it and benefiting from it.

...but who's going to deliver the junk food?

Not that anyone would care enough to pause longer than it takes to go pee anyways.

...but who's going to deliver the...wait a minute, who's going to take the pee away?

[Cheraphy]

Sounds good...Who's going to deliver the junk food?

No one, we have 3D printers capable of printing organic compounds. We print our food. We'll have a pipeline of raw materials that is pushed in and managed like other utilities and... wait. Who's going to run the food pipe?

[Catfish2]

Who's going to run the food pipe?

Fully autonomous industrial robots run by nuclear batteries!

[chrisname]

Grey Wolf and Cheraphy wrote:

Who's going to run X?

It depends if your stateless society is communist or capitalist. An anarcho-capitalist society would attempt to solve problems through free market economics. You'd get a natural division of labour as everyone exploited their various abilities to earn money (a stateless society would probably have a de facto currency, like the bottle caps in the Fallout games). A communist society would involve bartery (trading goods and services (and "services", for such is human nature) for other goods and services). Personally I don't believe in a stateless society, but if I had to pick, I'd pick the communist one over the capitalist one. I don't believe in a free market. I shudder to think what would happen if the world's corporations were completely deregulated. They could do whatever they wanted, and no-one could oppose them, because they'd have the resources to amass huge armies. Ultimately you'd end up with one company controlling the world's resources, or at least one for each significant portion of the world. Imagine the "cola wars" with actual soldiers and killing. Saying that, the stateless communist society would probably not fare much better. Instead of corporations, you'd have factions, each one having slightly different ideologies. The formation of factions seems to be the bane of the left-wing, to the extent that far-leftists often hate moderate leftists for not being left-wing enough more than they hate the right-wing for being right-wing (I guess they expect other leftists to know better). Historically, manipulating factions in the Bolshevik Party is how Stalin came to power. The Labour Party in the UK has split itself in half with factions on multiple occasions. The result would be practically the same as the capitalist society, with each faction arming itself against the others and the whole thing ending Civilisation-style.

[ModShop]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone put so much thought into a society where everyone just sits and plays video games...

chrisname wrote:

I'd pick the communist one over the capitalist one. I don't believe in a free market. I shudder to think what would happen if the world's corporations were completely deregulated. They could do whatever they wanted, and no-one could oppose them, because they'd have the resources to amass huge armies. Ultimately you'd end up with one company controlling the world's resources, or at least one for each significant portion of the world. Imagine the "cola wars" with actual soldiers and killing. Saying that, the stateless communist society would probably not fare much better. Instead of corporations, you'd have factions, each one having slightly different ideologies.

Which is exactly why we have a mix of both today, so they balance each other out. We all believe (well, most of us) that this way is best, we just disagree where exactly this "balance" truly lies.

[Cubbi]

A communist society would involve bartery

Why would you need to barter anything if you're getting everything you want already, from slaves robots those who felt like working today? One of the defining characteristics of the communist society, as written in Marx's utopian German Ideology (and repeatedly promised by the Soviet leaders), is the lack of any sort of currency or trade.

(and yes, it's as removed from reality as the Randian utopia of honest businessmen)

[Cheraphy]

See, the only problem I find with Socialism is the complete impossibility of truly breaking into wealth. It's nice when nearly everyone can live comfortably, but the inability to become rich can be a depressing thought.

edit: Personally I like the nordic models of socialism. I am aware they are mixed economies, but they are far closer to socialism than we are and they seem to be doing pretty damned well

[Disch]

but the inability to become rich can be a depressing thought.

Err... not really.

[LB]

I think money is a stupid necessity, so, yeah, not feeling depressed if I can go through life with as little of it as possible.

[chrisname]

@ModShop
Somewhere near what the Scandinavian countries have (except Sweden), because it seems to work there. And you can point out that Norway has lots of oil, but Denmark, Iceland and Finland (not technically a Scandinavian country but bear with me) don't.

@Cubbi
You're right, that's why I'm not a Marxist. Still, 3D printers and automata are an exciting prospect. I can't remember what it's called, but there's an e-book that explores the idea of having a society where robots do all the work and everything is recycled when its no longer needed, so they never run out of resources (admittedly unrealistic). A pseudo-government allocates resources to everyone in the form of a weekly allowance of credits. Artists and engineers design things and put them in a catalogue and then anyone can get robots to build whatever they want for number of credits. It sounded like a great system to me.

@Cheraphy
I don't understand why some people want to collect money so much. I'm living comfortably on less than minimum wage, which is about £250/week for a 40 hour working week. I'm spending about £180 per week on everything. Having said that, I don't believe it should be artificially made impossible or more difficult to get rich. That would be ridiculous. If someone does more work, or does harder (skilled) or more dangerous work, he should be able to earn a higher wage. But those should be the only factors. A guy who comes from a richer family than another shouldn't have access to better opportunities. That's why I'm in favour of a socialist meritocracy.

[ModShop]

Not to revive a dead thread, or start a new debate, but I found an article I found interesting. It's mainly about the true living conditions of the poor (which I have seen firsthand, but was told that I was viewing a small percentage). Just wanted to post it here.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/understanding-poverty-in-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor