Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 298

Baal which party do you generally support in mexico, pri or pan? Who do you think are some of the best presidents after the Mexican revolution.

Dont know that much about obrador and I generally take your word for it but as an outsider he seems alot tamer than ppl like AOC, Bernie, Pedro Castillo, etc.

On August 01 2021 18:25 RiKD wrote: There will always be loopholes and people that game the system. Society has already decided that they don't care about Elon Musk evading taxes and not contributing anything to public services. That is why he does it so freely. It's morally bad but what is the alternative? How much does he give each year and to where? Remember most of the world is convinced that these bad ass CEOs know more than anyone in any field. A lot of these venture capitalists like to talk about how much good they are doing for the world with tenuously "good" enterprises like Uber, RobinHood, Twitter, etc. They don't like to talk about how much labor gets exploited. It is more about the "art" of it. No, these companies are not a Van Gogh. Some half-baked podcast I make with my friends with the rationalization that we made it for the sake of making it is probably not art. Being good at investing is not art. My blog on LP is certainly not art but is actually probably closer to it than what a lot of these capitalists are talking about. So, we get Whole Foods. A "conscious capitalist" company. Nope. Not even close. It's all bullshit and the CEO is full of it. On the flip side capitalism gives people what they need or think they need or didn't even know they needed but they need now. Is this a good thing? Especially with the train flying off the rails sooner and sooner? Dopamine pumps aren't always a good thing but they are seemingly always a good thing for capitalism. Look at what happened to Rojava. There is no free place. That magical island in Interreflection is doomed because they did not have a standing army. I think it comes down to my dream would be to be some shadowy coder figure that some how eludes all of this bullshit. The reality is I am hoping to maybe find $40,000/yr at a small company with a boss that does not suck. I know I always seem to make these posts about me but sometimes it is really fucking hard to see alternatives to capitalism. It almost seems like it is "if you can't beat them, join them" at this point which is really sad and probably a bad principle for peace and happiness into the future. I can not be happy or at peace until some sever money problems are solved though. I have had to learn this the hard way.

I'm glad you are taking this stance. Pragmatism is a good skill to have.

On August 01 2021 08:47 Stroggoz wrote: Show nested quote + On August 01 2021 03:46 RiKD wrote: Another great rationalization is that someone else would be doing it if I wasn't. That's often a justifiable rationalization imo. It really doesn't make much sense to stop doing something if it literally changes nothing. I wouldn't blame a gas chamber operator if they told themselves that, since it is pretty obvious that they would just be replaced if they left that job, it would change nothing. In fact i've always thought that mid-tier nazi's had much better excuses than people like us do today, since they can get tortured for not following the party line-there is far more risk involved in them trying to make the world better off. The difference CEOs can make to the world is to stop evading taxes and put their money into public services that would literally save lives. There has to be some rationalization behind not doing that. Elon in particular has the kind of wealth that could save many lives if he chose to. Because he has not done this, he is a violent person and is responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. Society can decide for themselves whether this kind of violence is morally good or bad. The rules behind wealth creation are obviously unjustified and absurd.

What in the actual fuck?, "somebody else would do it" is the most used justification to do undeniable evil, its the excuse of every drug lord, every trafficker of goods and people, the worst atrocities in history have being envisioned by maniacs with good intentions and carried out by people saying somebody else would do it.

You make the ridiculous assumption that money in the public sector saves lives, and every dollar in the private doesn't, therefore is like killing people, this is wrong on so many levels. if Elon Musk liquidated all of his assets, fired all the thousands of employees of his companies, halted electric and autonomous car reserch, halted the space exploration program etc, etc... and gave away all of his fortune as taxes, it would finance the US government for 2 weeks.

I think money in the state instead of private pockets actually kills people so if you pay taxes you are worse than a gas chamber operator LOL, apparently I can make teenager-like hyperbolic rationalizations too.

On August 02 2021 00:04 hiems wrote: Baal which party do you generally support in mexico, pri or pan? Who do you think are some of the best presidents after the Mexican revolution. Dont know that much about obrador and I generally take your word for it but as an outsider he seems alot tamer than ppl like AOC, Bernie, Pedro Castillo, etc.

I dont support any party and I normally don't vote, I voted for the first time a few months ago to try to stop Morena's majority in congress since for the first time in my lifetime theres a real dictatorship threat with Obrador.

I prefer PAN over PRI since its less corrupt and slightly more pro free market.

AOC and Bernie are progressives, Castillo and Obrador are socially conservative, you don't win indigenous and poor people's vote by waving rainbow flags in the 3rd world (I've unsucessfully tried to explain that to Loco many times), thats why AOC/Bernie seem more radical to you, but I assure you Castillo and Obrador are more radical... Castillo is an open communist with ties to left-wing terrorism and will undoubtedly turn Peru into a dictatorship, thankfully Obrador isn't that crazy.

Funny thing is that many american politicians pose as leftwingers to get votes and go neoliberal when elected whlie in latinamerica, many politicians pose as neoliberal to get votes and go left wing when elected, the most infamous case being Chavez.

idk to me, identity politics in america is inherently much crazier than in latin america because the case for oppression against blacks/latinos vs against indigenous people is alot different. i generally sympathize with the case of indigenous people more than i do with "minority" groups in the usa so to me from a logic perspective whatever nonsense bernie/aoc spew out are more retarded than most latin american politicians. agree castillo is more radical though, most american politicians arent trying to rewrite the constitution.

that guy lenin moreno from ecuador seems like he did the opposite, completely backstabbed the leftists lol. latin american politics is really confusing to me alot of times hard to keep up with whats going on. american politics is pretty organized and stable. we generally just have 2 parties, and standard regime changes lol. latin america has all sorts of crazy stuff happening.

On August 02 2021 01:19 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On August 01 2021 08:47 Stroggoz wrote:   On August 01 2021 03:46 RiKD wrote: Another great rationalization is that someone else would be doing it if I wasn't. That's often a justifiable rationalization imo. It really doesn't make much sense to stop doing something if it literally changes nothing. I wouldn't blame a gas chamber operator if they told themselves that, since it is pretty obvious that they would just be replaced if they left that job, it would change nothing. In fact i've always thought that mid-tier nazi's had much better excuses than people like us do today, since they can get tortured for not following the party line-there is far more risk involved in them trying to make the world better off. The difference CEOs can make to the world is to stop evading taxes and put their money into public services that would literally save lives. There has to be some rationalization behind not doing that. Elon in particular has the kind of wealth that could save many lives if he chose to. Because he has not done this, he is a violent person and is responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. Society can decide for themselves whether this kind of violence is morally good or bad. The rules behind wealth creation are obviously unjustified and absurd. What in the actual fuck?, "somebody else would do it" is the most used justification to do undeniable evil, its the excuse of every drug lord, every trafficker of goods and people, the worst atrocities in history have being envisioned by maniacs with good intentions and carried out by people saying somebody else would do it. You make the ridiculous assumption that money in the public sector saves lives, and every dollar in the private doesn't, therefore is like killing people, this is wrong on so many levels. if Elon Musk liquidated all of his assets, fired all the thousands of employees of his companies, halted electric and autonomous car reserch, halted the space exploration program etc, etc... and gave away all of his fortune as taxes, it would finance the US government for 2 weeks. I think money in the state instead of private pockets actually kills people so if you pay taxes you are worse than a gas chamber operator LOL, apparently I can make teenager-like hyperbolic rationalizations too.

The rationalization is just a form of consequentialist thinking. It's a good one if it is honest about the circumstances. It seems to be true for anyone working in a corporation, if you work in exxon mobil at the higher level you would just get replaced if you quit. So I don't see how quitting would do any good-unless it was coupled with something else, like exposing what they are up to.

I'm only talking about liquidation of stock-portfolio-i did not mention the rest. I'm not singling out Elon in particular but he was mentioned and is a known tax evader. The total wealth just sitting around in tax havens is in the trillions of $ and it could be spent on many things that could save lives, doesn't have to be state-funded. Decarbonization of the atmosphere would obviously be one good option. The wealth sitting in tax havens isn't doing anything so no, it's not saving lives.To give one example bezos spent 10 billion of his wealth on the environment, but he is clearly a violent extremist because he could've put a lot more of his wealth into that.

On August 01 2021 23:14 Stroggoz wrote: Show nested quote + On August 01 2021 18:25 RiKD wrote: There will always be loopholes and people that game the system. Society has already decided that they don't care about Elon Musk evading taxes and not contributing anything to public services. That is why he does it so freely. It's morally bad but what is the alternative? How much does he give each year and to where? Remember most of the world is convinced that these bad ass CEOs know more than anyone in any field. On the flip side capitalism gives people what they need or think they need or didn't even know they needed but they need now. Is this a good thing? I know I always seem to make these posts about me but sometimes it is really fucking hard to see alternatives to capitalism. Why are you asking what the alternative is, there have been plenty of alternative suggestions which you've seen. One is economic democracy. There could be lots of basic changes like instead of having tax evasion you could have rich people paying taxes, and then we could restructure the tax system in accordance with democratic will from there. Capitalism doesn't give people what they want, I and pretty much everyone else want an eco-system. Polls indicate that people do want something that's quite a bit different to what we have now so I don't think most of the world agrees-and if they did I don't think there would have been so much consistent resistance to capitalism over the world for the past 250 years.

I hope you are right. (Those polls are probably shitty though)

I realize I have seen plenty of alternative suggestions but they all seem to run into roadblocks.

- Besides collapse I don't see what will stop the USA empire or now more so the China empire or just that mentality of x-industrial complex empire
- is it not possible for public services to bankrupt the system?
- I am still brainwashed that we always need economic growth. I've seen what happened to Akron, OH, Youngstown, OH, Canton, OH first hand. Bleak fucking spaces on the planet where the best you can hope for is a continual opiate prescription or death by fentanyl.
- I've seen worker co-ops work on small scale for example local food and local bike shop and also there is Mondragon in Spain which I only really vaguely know of.

I love the idea of everyone working less and of course improved public services and overall improved ecology but I don't know how that is accounted for. Well, I mean I do but my vision is blocked by this all-powerful, full speed ahead destructo locomotive that is capitalism.

I also tend to agree with Nietzsche that there is a will to power, a will to life that includes exploitation. I like to think that I do not exploit people as much as I use to which is definitely true but it is also true that exploitation is part of being not only human but any living creature. I mean I go 4 buttons un-done on the El Chapo shirt and the woman can not resist. I said I don't wear buttons but the El Chapo shirt is an exception. Has to be. There are many examples that my life is really full of many tiny and large exploitations in order to survive and thrive. What do you think of the relationship between me struggling more than I have ever struggled in my life and not wanting to exploit people or engage with capitalism?

You think I like spending time with DSA simps and Marxist-Leninist maniacs?

Maybe what I really want to do is get together all the anarchists in this city... it's maybe 4 or 5 people... and just gather together and pass a blunt around and have some conversations.

I think it's easier to just be anti-identity, get a job that does not have shitty input to output ratios so I can pay some bills off and not eat grits for every meal. If I get to some surplus moniez... but that is what everyone says. Just wait until I get my money right. Just wait until I win at capitalism so I can go ahead and really fight capitalism... Maybe Stroggoz is the one guy that is actually sort of accomplishing this.

On August 02 2021 04:32 RiKD wrote: Show nested quote + On August 01 2021 23:14 Stroggoz wrote:   On August 01 2021 18:25 RiKD wrote: There will always be loopholes and people that game the system. Society has already decided that they don't care about Elon Musk evading taxes and not contributing anything to public services. That is why he does it so freely. It's morally bad but what is the alternative? How much does he give each year and to where? Remember most of the world is convinced that these bad ass CEOs know more than anyone in any field. On the flip side capitalism gives people what they need or think they need or didn't even know they needed but they need now. Is this a good thing? I know I always seem to make these posts about me but sometimes it is really fucking hard to see alternatives to capitalism. Why are you asking what the alternative is, there have been plenty of alternative suggestions which you've seen. One is economic democracy. There could be lots of basic changes like instead of having tax evasion you could have rich people paying taxes, and then we could restructure the tax system in accordance with democratic will from there. Capitalism doesn't give people what they want, I and pretty much everyone else want an eco-system. Polls indicate that people do want something that's quite a bit different to what we have now so I don't think most of the world agrees-and if they did I don't think there would have been so much consistent resistance to capitalism over the world for the past 250 years. I hope you are right. (Those polls are probably shitty though) I realize I have seen plenty of alternative suggestions but they all seem to run into roadblocks. - is it not possible for public services to bankrupt the system? - I am still brainwashed that we always need economic growth.

long term growth comes from research and development, which is currently being defunded, quite severely under covid. In other words, we should stop believing the lie that capitalism is a pro-growth system. The amount of money put into STEM research under capitalism is a joke-it's far less than the USSR did for example. This also answers your question about bankrupting a system-if you want to bankrupt a society, the method of corporatizing public institutions is a good way to go about it. Not having roads/schools/universities/hospitals is not how your society gets rich, that's how you get turned into a third world economy.

America doesn't have to collapse as Russia did. Russia could have gone the social democratic route, which would have prevented destabilizing the economy and the rise of people like Putin. The west has similar options.

On August 02 2021 04:14 Stroggoz wrote: The rationalization is just a form of consequentialist thinking. It's a good one if it is honest about the circumstances. It seems to be true for anyone working in a corporation, if you work in exxon mobil at the higher level you would just get replaced if you quit. So I don't see how quitting would do any good-unless it was coupled with something else, like exposing what they are up to.

As I said it also appliles to drug dealers if you don't go and kill these rivals some other sicario will do it, and its true but it somehow doesnt seem to morality justify muder.. but why even bother with examples you excused the Schutzstaffel's war crimes in your OP.

I guess its just another diseased though process spawned from collectivist dogma, stripping individual from any choice and responsibility, just a replaceable cog.

On August 02 2021 04:32 RiKD wrote: - Besides collapse I don't see what will stop the USA empire or now more so the China empire or just that mentality of x-industrial complex empire[quote] Most empire end in collapse, not all in total collapse, but ordered scaling down never happens. [quote]- is it not possible for public services to bankrupt the system?

What do yo mean? yes thats budget deficit.

- I am still brainwashed that we always need economic growth.

You need economic growth if you have population growth to maintain the standard of living, but its not a hard requirement for an economy at all.

- I've seen worker co-ops work on small scale for example local food and local bike shop and also there is Mondragon in Spain which I only really vaguely know of.

Ding ding ding... socialism problem is scalability, capitalism is more resiliant to scalability issues.

I think it's easier to just be anti-identity, get a job that does not have shitty input to output ratios so I can pay some bills off and not eat grits for every meal. If I get to some surplus moniez... but that is what everyone says. Just wait until I get my money right. Just wait until I win at capitalism so I can go ahead and really fight capitalism... Maybe Stroggoz is the one guy that is actually sort of accomplishing this.

Build a homestead, grow your own food, work hard, join the community and things will be crystal clear then... or don't and keep writing these neurotic rants bitching about capitalism.

On August 02 2021 06:00 Stroggoz wrote: long term growth comes from research and development, which is currently being defunded, quite severely under covid. In other words, we should stop believing the lie that capitalism is a pro-growth system. The amount of money put into STEM research under capitalism is a joke-it's far less than the USSR did for example. This also answers your question about bankrupting a system-if you want to bankrupt a society, the method of corporatizing public institutions is a good way to go about it. Not having roads/schools/universities/hospitals is not how your society gets rich, that's how you get turned into a third world economy. America doesn't have to collapse as Russia did. Russia could have gone the social democratic route, which would have prevented destabilizing the economy and the rise of people like Putin. The west has similar options.

so growth comes from reserach into STEM and capitalism puts less money into it than the soviets did, yet the soviets turned into a shithole and collapsed while the west prospered, strange isnt it?.

In before "but the russian space program" lol, yes all socialist regimes do well when they steal everybody's property, then they run out of money and the country is run by ill prepared apparatchiks until the collective friction brings the whole thing into a screeching halt, and then mass starvation happens.

yes no infractucture collapses a country, but it has nothing to do with corporations.

On August 02 2021 02:37 hiems wrote: idk to me, identity politics in america is inherently much crazier than in latin america because the case for oppression against blacks/latinos vs against indigenous people is alot different. i generally sympathize with the case of indigenous people more than i do with "minority" groups in the usa so to me from a logic perspective whatever nonsense bernie/aoc spew out are more retarded than most latin american politicians. agree castillo is more radical though, most american politicians arent trying to rewrite the constitution. that guy lenin moreno from ecuador seems like he did the opposite, completely backstabbed the leftists lol. latin american politics is really confusing to me alot of times hard to keep up with whats going on. american politics is pretty organized and stable. we generally just have 2 parties, and standard regime changes lol. latin america has all sorts of crazy stuff happening.

Thats because Drag Queen Story Time to kindergardeners can be very shocking and will create a visceral response, the hulking trans rugby player and all that retarded madness progressives push is very loud compared to some guy just talking about fraternity between latinamerican countries and shit like that but the real damage is done by left wing economic policies, nationalization, autarkic isolationism etc.

The US political parties have been center right and center left, so it has had a pretty stable course over the years, but latinamerican countries have struggled with hard left wing politicians and its a cancer we've never been able to get rid of.

On August 02 2021 23:25 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On August 02 2021 06:00 Stroggoz wrote: long term growth comes from research and development, which is currently being defunded, quite severely under covid. In other words, we should stop believing the lie that capitalism is a pro-growth system. The amount of money put into STEM research under capitalism is a joke-it's far less than the USSR did for example. This also answers your question about bankrupting a system-if you want to bankrupt a society, the method of corporatizing public institutions is a good way to go about it. Not having roads/schools/universities/hospitals is not how your society gets rich, that's how you get turned into a third world economy. America doesn't have to collapse as Russia did. Russia could have gone the social democratic route, which would have prevented destabilizing the economy and the rise of people like Putin. The west has similar options. so growth comes from reserach into STEM and capitalism puts less money into it than the soviets did, yet the soviets turned into a shithole and collapsed while the west prospered, strange isnt it?. In before "but the russian space program" lol, yes all socialist regimes do well when they steal everybody's property, then they run out of money and the country is run by ill prepared apparatchiks until the collective friction brings the whole thing into a screeching halt, and then mass starvation happens. yes no infractucture collapses a country, but it has nothing to do with corporations.

Hmm, you seem to think when I make a comparison like this that I'm trying to justify a political system. To see how absurd that would be, the most innovative country in STEM in the early 20th century was probably Hungary, but it was a fascist regime. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, their intellectual culture was probably something built up over generations, and fascism basically drove half the good scientists out of Europe.

The first sentence is not true, Russia had very strong growth rates from the 30's through to the 80's when the system started stagnating from the things you mention. The serious failure of science in the USSR was that it suppressed research in genetics and evolutionary biology. Most of the money went into eng/phys/math. Their system had a lot of serious problems like the suppression of Jewish scientists and any scientist that spoke out against the regime. So the lack of liberal rights was the largest block in their system. But the innovation, particularly in math, coming out of Russia has been very impressive. I don't think USSR's space race was a particularly good thing, it was driven by serious ego problems, so it was basically a publicity stunt. But we did get some good technology out of it.

I'm guessing most economists think R and D spending has a huge effect on long term growth given they teach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solow%E2%80%93Swan_model this in their classes, but it seems pretty obvious to me, one of the contributing factors for lower growth rates in the west right now is defunding universities, as well shifting a lot of that research into money making schemes like me too drugs, finance, ect. It will take a long time to see the full effects of this. In the universities, there has also been shifting of money into things like data science and statistics instead of computer science and math, since the former subjects are bigger money makers in the short term while comp sci/math take much longer to benefit society.

It's not hard to see that research in STEM has a long term significant effect on growth, a few discoveries in science a few hundred years ago can develop into entire industries over time. Also i don't want to single out progress in STEM, in my view the humanities is even more important at this time in history-and as i've just pointed out one of the biggest hindrences to russian science was their complete lack of progress in the humanities/liberalism, and social sciences.

[QUOTE]On August 02 2021 23:13 Baalim wrote: [QUOTE]On August 02 2021 04:32 RiKD wrote: - Besides collapse I don't see what will stop the USA empire or now more so the China empire or just that mentality of x-industrial complex empire[quote] Most empire end in collapse, not all in total collapse, but ordered scaling down never happens.

Ordered scaling down never happens but it could theoretically happen. If the Indians and the Chinese get a taste of the middle (upper) class which I feel like has already happened we could be in a lot of trouble.

- is it not possible for public services to bankrupt the system? What do yo mean? yes thats budget deficit.

I was listening to an interview with Naval where he talks about not being a fan of universal basic income but perhaps qualified income which is basically just targeted public services. Naval said the problem though is that it is a feedback loop. As these qualified incomes get doled out then more people vote for the qualified income candidates and more people get more qualified incomes until we go bankrupt. I can see that as a possibility but I don't know where the numbers are. Surely, there could be more qualified incomes doled out. Right now the USA is almost $30 trillion in debt in which my source said $22 trillion is held by the public. WTF? What is the number that we go bankrupt? $100 trillion? What is actually going on here?

You need economic growth if you have population growth to maintain the standard of living, but its not a hard requirement for an economy at all.

I think a lot of places are trying to improve their standard of living and it will be the end of the world when USA accepts less standard of living.

- I've seen worker co-ops work on small scale for example local food and local bike shop and also there is Mondragon in Spain which I only really vaguely know of.

Ding ding ding... socialism problem is scalability, capitalism is more resiliant to scalability issues.

Why is capitalism more resilient to scalability issues?

Mondragon has 80 million employees. Probably neither of us is going to look up how that is truly structured but it is labeled a federation of worker co-ops. Obviously 80 million people are not democratically voting on everything or maybe they are?

I think it's easier to just be anti-identity, get a job that does not have shitty input to output ratios so I can pay some bills off and not eat grits for every meal. If I get to some surplus moniez... but that is what everyone says. Just wait until I get my money right. Just wait until I win at capitalism so I can go ahead and really fight capitalism... Maybe Stroggoz is the one guy that is actually sort of accomplishing this.

Build a homestead, grow your own food, work hard, join the community and things will be crystal clear then... or don't and keep writing these neurotic rants bitching about capitalism.

I worked on a farm for 1 day and will never do that again. Corn was fine, squash was even interesting but we were scheduled to pick the green beans for 4 hours. I was sitting meditation style picking the green beans and the farmer yelled at me to get on my knees so I quit instantly.

I'd rather code something valuable and outsource or disregard everything less than my exaggerated perceived hourly rate. Ideally I would like to develop AI to pick blueberries or pay a trained immigrant to pick them for $5/hr. I love blueberries but I hate picking them. My yield/hour is really awful as well. Am I an evil person for paying a skilled brown person $5/hr to pick blueberries for me?
What happens to all the brown people when my AI starts working and they are out of jobs? Who the fuck is going to want to pay the brown people anything besides the crybabies on the left that didn't put any sweat equity into building the blueberry picking robots?

On August 03 2021 03:04 Stroggoz wrote: Show nested quote + On August 02 2021 23:25 Baalim wrote:   On August 02 2021 06:00 Stroggoz wrote: long term growth comes from research and development, which is currently being defunded, quite severely under covid. In other words, we should stop believing the lie that capitalism is a pro-growth system. The amount of money put into STEM research under capitalism is a joke-it's far less than the USSR did for example. This also answers your question about bankrupting a system-if you want to bankrupt a society, the method of corporatizing public institutions is a good way to go about it. Not having roads/schools/universities/hospitals is not how your society gets rich, that's how you get turned into a third world economy. America doesn't have to collapse as Russia did. Russia could have gone the social democratic route, which would have prevented destabilizing the economy and the rise of people like Putin. The west has similar options. so growth comes from reserach into STEM and capitalism puts less money into it than the soviets did, yet the soviets turned into a shithole and collapsed while the west prospered, strange isnt it?. In before "but the russian space program" lol, yes all socialist regimes do well when they steal everybody's property, then they run out of money and the country is run by ill prepared apparatchiks until the collective friction brings the whole thing into a screeching halt, and then mass starvation happens. yes no infractucture collapses a country, but it has nothing to do with corporations. Hmm, you seem to think when I make a comparison like this that I'm trying to justify a political system. To see how absurd that would be, the most innovative country in STEM in the early 20th century was probably Hungary, but it was a fascist regime. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, their intellectual culture was probably something built up over generations, and fascism basically drove half the good scientists out of Europe. The first sentence is not true, Russia had very strong growth rates from the 30's through to the 80's when the system started stagnating from the things you mention. The serious failure of science in the USSR was that it suppressed research in genetics and evolutionary biology. Most of the money went into eng/phys/math. Their system had a lot of serious problems like the suppression of Jewish scientists and any scientist that spoke out against the regime. So the lack of liberal rights was the largest block in their system. But the innovation, particularly in math, coming out of Russia has been very impressive. I don't think USSR's space race was a particularly good thing, it was driven by serious ego problems, so it was basically a publicity stunt. But we did get some good technology out of it. I'm guessing most economists think R and D spending has a huge effect on long term growth given they teach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solow%E2%80%93Swan_model this in their classes, but it seems pretty obvious to me, one of the contributing factors for lower growth rates in the west right now is defunding universities, as well shifting a lot of that research into money making schemes like me too drugs, finance, ect. It will take a long time to see the full effects of this. In the universities, there has also been shifting of money into things like data science and statistics instead of computer science and math, since the former subjects are bigger money makers in the short term while comp sci/math take much longer to benefit society. It's not hard to see that research in STEM has a long term significant effect on growth, a few discoveries in science a few hundred years ago can develop into entire industries over time. Also i don't want to single out progress in STEM, in my view the humanities is even more important at this time in history-and as i've just pointed out one of the biggest hindrences to russian science was their complete lack of progress in the humanities/liberalism, and social sciences.

yes you are justifying statism, its not like you are for a libertarian type of government with the added task of pushing STEM investment, but you think its one of the many reasons why a big state is preferable over a small one.

On August 03 2021 04:06 RiKD wrote: Ordered scaling down never happens but it could theoretically happen. If the Indians and the Chinese get a taste of the middle (upper) class which I feel like has already happened we could be in a lot of trouble.

China will fall very soon, the economic rebirth was caused by China's privatization of many sectors that now Xi is walking back on, now billionares are fleeing the country and if you see the indicators you can see this is the begginign of the end for China's bright future.

- is it not possible for public services to bankrupt the system? [quote] I was listening to an interview with Naval where he talks about not being a fan of universal basic income but perhaps qualified income which is basically just targeted public services. Naval said the problem though is that it is a feedback loop. As these qualified incomes get doled out then more people vote for the qualified income candidates and more people get more qualified incomes until we go bankrupt. I can see that as a possibility but I don't know where the numbers are. Surely, there could be more qualified incomes doled out.

UBI has the drawback of being very inefficient in regards of distributing to people who need it the most, but it has 2 upsides, it gets rid of all the bureocratic friction of distribution and it genreates less negative incetives, these two upsides ecliipse the negative part.

If indeed the system itself keeps funneling money up top leading to social instability then it seems to me like the best option to fix it, but trying to target aid and see who deserves what (which is what we have today) is a fucking awful mess.

I think a lot of places are trying to improve their standard of living and it will be the end of the world when USA accepts less standard of living.

Well there are many things the US does that is extremely wasteful that don't add to the standard of living but increases comsumption, like fast fashion, unrepairability of electronics, planned obsolecense, packaging etc.

You are blind to many of these things since you've grown among them but when I go to the US its baffling to me many simple things like a couple of months ago I went to vegas and I wanted to drink a beer in freemon st, so i asked the cashier to just give me the can and she said she couldn't, so she bagged it and stapled the reciet and gave it to me, that to me is crazy, but i get its some bureaucratic health legislation or something like that.

Why is capitalism more resilient to scalability issues?

Capitalism is a bottom up structure, it has a survival of the fittest mechanism that keeps it at max efficiency and it also allows for "mutations", meaning a socialist-like entity like the Mondragon corp you mention to be crated, if you want to give the workers shares/ownership that is fine, as long as it can survive in the free market.

Socialism (most of it) its top to bottom structured, central planned, no survival of the fittest mechanism so inefficiencies are everywhere, it doesn't allow for mutations, it requires compliance and it ideologically stomps on free-market entities.

Mondragon has 80 million employees. Probably neither of us is going to look up how that is truly structured but it is labeled a federation of worker co-ops. Obviously 80 million people are not democratically voting on everything or maybe they are?

from where do you get that crazy 80M number?

Wikipedia shows 79k employees and 10M Euros in revenue, which would net $126 Euros per year per employee which doesnt make any sense, these numbers are obv manipulated.

I worked on a farm for 1 day and will never do that again. Corn was fine, squash was even interesting but we were scheduled to pick the green beans for 4 hours. I was sitting meditation style picking the green beans and the farmer yelled at me to get on my knees so I quit instantly.

I didn't mean go work in a farm, but build your own homestead and harvest what you need and work at your own pace, trade with the community etc.

It's a legit suggestion not a tongue in cheek one to make you appreciate labor or something, many localists started donig that like Joe Norman (Nassim Taleb's pupil)

pay a trained immigrant to pick them for $5/hr. I love blueberries but I hate picking them. My yield/hour is really awful as well. Am I an evil person for paying a skilled brown person $5/hr to pick blueberries for me?

According to you thats exploitation.

What happens to all the brown people when my AI starts working and they are out of jobs? Who the fuck is going to want to pay the brown people anything besides the crybabies on the left that didn't put any sweat equity into building the blueberry picking robots?

Trades will do good for a long time, drivers are the first one going away followed by many desk jobs, far easier to automate some law-clerk job than a plumber.

But what happens with automation? production greatly increases driving prices down, the demand for mindless jobs decreases while the demand for more sophisticated jobs increase.

On August 03 2021 20:25 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On August 03 2021 04:06 RiKD wrote: Ordered scaling down never happens but it could theoretically happen. If the Indians and the Chinese get a taste of the middle (upper) class which I feel like has already happened we could be in a lot of trouble. China will fall very soon, the economic rebirth was caused by China's privatization of many sectors that now Xi is walking back on, now billionares are fleeing the country and if you see the indicators you can see this is the begginign of the end for China's bright future.   - is it not possible for public services to bankrupt the system? [quote] I was listening to an interview with Naval where he talks about not being a fan of universal basic income but perhaps qualified income which is basically just targeted public services. Naval said the problem though is that it is a feedback loop. As these qualified incomes get doled out then more people vote for the qualified income candidates and more people get more qualified incomes until we go bankrupt. I can see that as a possibility but I don't know where the numbers are. Surely, there could be more qualified incomes doled out. UBI has the drawback of being very inefficient in regards of distributing to people who need it the most, but it has 2 upsides, it gets rid of all the bureocratic friction of distribution and it genreates less negative incetives, these two upsides ecliipse the negative part. If indeed the system itself keeps funneling money up top leading to social instability then it seems to me like the best option to fix it, but trying to target aid and see who deserves what (which is what we have today) is a fucking awful mess.   I think a lot of places are trying to improve their standard of living and it will be the end of the world when USA accepts less standard of living. Well there are many things the US does that is extremely wasteful that don't add to the standard of living but increases comsumption, like fast fashion, unrepairability of electronics, planned obsolecense, packaging etc. You are blind to many of these things since you've grown among them but when I go to the US its baffling to me many simple things like a couple of months ago I went to vegas and I wanted to drink a beer in freemon st, so i asked the cashier to just give me the can and she said she couldn't, so she bagged it and stapled the reciet and gave it to me, that to me is crazy, but i get its some bureaucratic health legislation or something like that.   Why is capitalism more resilient to scalability issues? Capitalism is a bottom up structure, it has a survival of the fittest mechanism that keeps it at max efficiency and it also allows for "mutations", meaning a socialist-like entity like the Mondragon corp you mention to be crated, if you want to give the workers shares/ownership that is fine, as long as it can survive in the free market. Socialism (most of it) its top to bottom structured, central planned, no survival of the fittest mechanism so inefficiencies are everywhere, it doesn't allow for mutations, it requires compliance and it ideologically stomps on free-market entities.   Mondragon has 80 million employees. Probably neither of us is going to look up how that is truly structured but it is labeled a federation of worker co-ops. Obviously 80 million people are not democratically voting on everything or maybe they are? from where do you get that crazy 80M number? Wikipedia shows 79k employees and 10M Euros in revenue, which would net $126 Euros per year per employee which doesnt make any sense, these numbers are obv manipulated.   I worked on a farm for 1 day and will never do that again. Corn was fine, squash was even interesting but we were scheduled to pick the green beans for 4 hours. I was sitting meditation style picking the green beans and the farmer yelled at me to get on my knees so I quit instantly. I didn't mean go work in a farm, but build your own homestead and harvest what you need and work at your own pace, trade with the community etc. It's a legit suggestion not a tongue in cheek one to make you appreciate labor or something, many localists started donig that like Joe Norman (Nassim Taleb's pupil)   pay a trained immigrant to pick them for $5/hr. I love blueberries but I hate picking them. My yield/hour is really awful as well. Am I an evil person for paying a skilled brown person $5/hr to pick blueberries for me? According to you thats exploitation.   What happens to all the brown people when my AI starts working and they are out of jobs? Who the fuck is going to want to pay the brown people anything besides the crybabies on the left that didn't put any sweat equity into building the blueberry picking robots? Trades will do good for a long time, drivers are the first one going away followed by many desk jobs, far easier to automate some law-clerk job than a plumber. But what happens with automation? production greatly increases driving prices down, the demand for mindless jobs decreases while the demand for more sophisticated jobs increase.

irt Mondragon - I meant 80,000 not 80 million employees. Btw, I think you mean $12 billion in revenue not $12 million.

The correct calculation is $12 billion in revenue divided by 80,000 employees which equals $150,000/employee.

+++++

irt $5/hr blueberry picker - It is exploitation. Maybe Loco couldn't sleep after making a deal like that but I certainly could. Now take that little deal and scale up. I think most people would not want to make meth and shoot a kid because they walk in on your meth lab. What about keeping an entire labor force at $10/hr and bully them into not forming a union? Make you wait in a waiting room for 1 hour and then pressure you into signing a 60 page complicated contract? I could go on and on and on the exploitations are everywhere big and small. I put the Nietzsche in that other post because it applies. Is it part of the game of life or can we weed out the exploitation?

A standing army that reads Machiavelli and Nietzsche are going to exploit and dominate a camp of crust punks or a commune of hippies or Rojava every day of the week. What does that mean?

+++++

irt automation - I agree with you. I feel like if I don't figure out a sophisticated job I am screwed and even more screwed in the future. There are no guarantees our ruling overlords are going to do anything about this and most CEOs will fight to do nothing (exploitation?)

I can do something like learn to code. Telling 55 year old coal miners to learn to code is rather cruel though. Telling a truck driver to learn machine learning bro is the same. I agree that targeted benefits are a bit of a nightmare. It's better than nothing though.

Part of the problem with a universal basic income or medicare for all, etc. Is that it actually guts a shit ton of jobs in it's own right. I am all for gutting as many jobs as possible but I also don't want anyone to be starving or homeless. I don't really care if certain luxuries take a hit but I also don't want us all to have shaved heads wearing the same clothing and eating oatmeal for every meal.

On August 03 2021 21:59 RiKD wrote: [quote]irt Mondragon - I meant 80,000 not 80 million employees. Btw, I think you mean $12 billion in revenue not $12 million. The correct calculation is $12 billion in revenue divided by 80,000 employees which equals $150,000/employee.

I was confused because in spain they use the . as thousands separator for some reason.

irt $5/hr blueberry picker - It is exploitation. Maybe Loco couldn't sleep after making a deal like that but I certainly could. Now take that little deal and scale up. I think most people would not want to make meth and shoot a kid because they walk in on your meth lab. What about keeping an entire labor force at $10/hr and bully them into not forming a union? Make you wait in a waiting room for 1 hour and then pressure you into signing a 60 page complicated contract? I could go on and on and on the exploitations are everywhere big and small. I put the Nietzsche in that other post because it applies. Is it part of the game of life or can we weed out the exploitation?

It's not exploitation if thats were the market value of their work, on the other hand making deliberately making a contract too complex to understand so that the person doesn't know what is signing into that would be exploitation, Unions are antithesis of free market so fuck them.

We need to constantly consume living organisms to keep living, all animal's existence is vampiric in nature, pain, suffering and death are the only guarantees in life, leftists act as if the status quo in nature is painless and is the system is the source of it, while its exactly the other way around.

A standing army that reads Machiavelli and Nietzsche are going to exploit and dominate a camp of crust punks or a commune of hippies or Rojava every day of the week. What does that mean?

It means that theres a strong drive in most of us to push forward, to climb the ladder, conquer and thrive.
+++++

irt automation - I agree with you. I feel like if I don't figure out a sophisticated job I am screwed and even more screwed in the future. There are no guarantees our ruling overlords are going to do anything about this and most CEOs will fight to do nothing (exploitation?) I can do something like learn to code. Telling 55 year old coal miners to learn to code is rather cruel though. Telling a truck driver to learn machine learning bro is the same. I agree that targeted benefits are a bit of a nightmare. It's better than nothing though.

As I said, luckily most trades are very difficult to automate, new trades will also emerge like robotics mainitenance or things like that, naturally theres always periods of painful transition, a bit like when Tatcher ended England's coal mining, previous politicians kept subsidizing it to keep taking the political hit but these things have to happen, suffering is unavoidable and posponing it will only make it worse.

Part of the problem with a universal basic income or medicare for all, etc. Is that it actually guts a shit ton of jobs in it's own right. I am all for gutting as many jobs as possible but I also don't want anyone to be starving or homeless. I don't really care if certain luxuries take a hit but I also don't want us all to have shaved heads wearing the same clothing and eating oatmeal for every meal.

UBI shouldnt be put in the same box as medicare, since as I said subsidized healthcare creates all the ton of bad incentives state mega-monopolies create.

Creating unproducive jobs doesn't help anyone, its basically paying wellfare since its job doesn't really contribute (which is what more bureaocrats are), these people could work in actual productive shit increasing the overall wealth of a country instead of draining it.

It looks like we don't actually care about worker co-ops or looking at workers owning the means of labor/democratic economics. Mondragon is very interesting because 80,000 employees is quite a lot. But, if neither of us wants to do any research on it I guess that is dead for now.

It's not exploitation if thats were the market value of their work, on the other hand making deliberately making a contract too complex to understand so that the person doesn't know what is signing into that would be exploitation, Unions are antithesis of free market so fuck them.

It sounds like you are ok with a lot of people starving and dying under capitalism. Le livre noir du capitalisme counts that same 100 million deaths in the 20th century that is claimed of communism.

Unions are the only leverage that the people get besides creating code and media. Code and media are permission-less leverage for anyone but not if the code or "art" suck.

I have seen both sides of unions though. When I was at Whole Foods Amazon was very brutal with the workforce. I quit and now I starve and lead a debt-ridden, undignified life that society tells me I should feel guilty about.

When I was in the steel mills. The US Steelworkers (union) negotiated the entire work force versus all of the USA Arcelor Mittal mills. The US Steelworkers were making more than $30+/hr + overtime ($45+/hr) etc etc. Do you know how far $100,000/yr goes if you live in the middle of no where in Indiana? Obviously, the booming mills could hold on but for example my largest account went under even though they had some of the best equipment in the world. We could have put in really great technology in a number of areas but it was off the tables because the unions were so strong. Specifically the bricklayers. We could have automated an entire area of the process but then I start getting death threats. China just finds a place next to a shit ton of starving rice farmers and let's them live at the mill and feeds them and they may get $10/hr if that. No safety or environmental concerns whatsoever.

We need to constantly consume living organisms to keep living, all animal's existence is vampiric in nature, pain, suffering and death are the only guarantees in life, leftists act as if the status quo in nature is painless and is the system is the source of it, while its exactly the other way around.

We don't need to consume nearly as much or the variety that we currently do. I've read too many communist dystopias to think that anything is a sure shot at reducing harm. I have spent too much time talking to DSA simps and Marxist-Leninists and others to think that broadly the left is in some great place at the moment. I honestly don't know what to think on a number of topics.

A standing army that reads Machiavelli and Nietzsche are going to exploit and dominate a camp of crust punks or a commune of hippies or Rojava every day of the week. What does that mean?

It means that theres a strong drive in most of us to push forward, to climb the ladder, conquer and thrive.

That is a little gross in the context of the Turkish army marching on Rojava. An extreme example. In most cases I am not sure what to call it. Exploitation typically works. It's rather difficult for me to simplify. People do things for a whole number of reasons and I don't think it could be just broadly summarized by Will to Power, Will to Life, Will to Beauty, Will to the Good Life, etc.

irt automation - I agree with you. I feel like if I don't figure out a sophisticated job I am screwed and even more screwed in the future. There are no guarantees our ruling overlords are going to do anything about this and most CEOs will fight to do nothing (exploitation?) I can do something like learn to code. Telling 55 year old coal miners to learn to code is rather cruel though. Telling a truck driver to learn machine learning bro is the same. I agree that targeted benefits are a bit of a nightmare. It's better than nothing though.

As I said, luckily most trades are very difficult to automate, new trades will also emerge like robotics mainitenance or things like that, naturally theres always periods of painful transition, a bit like when Tatcher ended England's coal mining, previous politicians kept subsidizing it to keep taking the political hit but these things have to happen, suffering is unavoidable and posponing it will only make it worse.

Part of the problem with a universal basic income or medicare for all, etc. Is that it actually guts a shit ton of jobs in it's own right. I am all for gutting as many jobs as possible but I also don't want anyone to be starving or homeless. I don't really care if certain luxuries take a hit but I also don't want us all to have shaved heads wearing the same clothing and eating oatmeal for every meal.

UBI shouldnt be put in the same box as medicare, since as I said subsidized healthcare creates all the ton of bad incentives state mega-monopolies create.

Creating unproducive jobs doesn't help anyone, its basically paying wellfare since its job doesn't really contribute (which is what more bureaocrats are), these people could work in actual productive shit increasing the overall wealth of a country instead of draining it.[/QUOTE]

Is there a way to knock it all out is what I meant?

This bitch at my provider charged me $400 for 1 hour with a resident for a therapy appointment. Get rid of all the health insurance companies. Get rid of a lot of government workers. Automate as fast as possible but then provide a large enough universal basic income.

My only experience with national health is UK. My grandma gets help but it is like too many horror stories. Right now she has had a broken arm for 2 weeks and still hasn't seen a doctor. They just tell her to take opiates and that it will be ok but my grandma doesn't like opiates and is fucking pissed lol. My parents blow it out of proportion how bad NHS is but I do have to admit there are just too many crazy stories. Oh, once, my grandma went blind because it took too long to treat her glaucoma. They let her go blind!!!

I only hear like magic about the scandinavian healthcare but who fucking knows?

Myself in the USA they are good at treating my mental illness but I will probably die of liver disease within 10 years. If I have cancer I am just going to die. No Kickstarter or GoFundMe bull shit here. Just let me die in peace.

On August 03 2021 20:25 Baalim wrote: China will fall very soon, the economic rebirth was caused by China's privatization of many sectors that now Xi is walking back on, now billionares are fleeing the country and if you see the indicators you can see this is the begginign of the end for China's bright future.

Betting against u on that one. I think the drunken retard at the control panel might get bored with wiping 10% off his country's market cap every other month. I mean he delayed an IPO, forced some minimum wage increases, banned some educational services and wants to force kids < 12 to play less video games, whatever stuff like that. Western politicians do insanely retarded stuff too when it tickles their fancy. As long as you have some semblance of capitalism it can take a lot of abuse and still do fine IMO. I think the supreme leader just wanted some attention because the billionaire peasants were stealing his thunder