I'm gonna say something that is probably gonna be unpopular, but I seriously wonder if there is any pure form of government that would work long term. History seems to point to no, and not even because they are bad ideas necessarily, but because we can't seem to ever get rid of greedy psychopaths that have the audacity, and short sighted people who just can't believe they have the audacity, and wait until it's too late to actually do anything about it. I hope I'm wrong.

@RickiTarr @blogdiva

Not wrong. All systems of government (and governance) are corruptible (including anarchy! sorry) and people will always find a way to be greedy and cruel and irrational and ignorant. That’s what “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance” means, as one tiny example of similar sage advice from moral and spiritual leaders throughout time, that every generation ignores as quaint until they rediscover it for themselves after it’s too late. The folly of mankind is eternal.

@alexch @RickiTarr @blogdiva "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" said Winston Churchill — and that was certainly true of him, so.
@fishidwardrobe
i dont really like this quote its stupid and assumes that gaining power changes someone. i believe the process might change a person but they wouldn't become corrupt simply because they suddenly have more potency.
@alexch @RickiTarr @blogdiva

@kitsastro @fishidwardrobe @RickiTarr @blogdiva

right, the point is that we are all corruptible, and the more temptation we have, the more likely we are to cross the invisible line, often with the help of idealistic rationalization and good intentions (with which the road to hell is paved)

— evil is a process, not an identity

@alexch
my thought is that ideals isn't the problem. it is a reckless lack of practicality.
@fishidwardrobe @RickiTarr @blogdiva
@kitsastro @alexch @RickiTarr @blogdiva Evil is very practical. Practicality is a means to an end. The question is, what end?
@fishidwardrobe @kitsastro @alexch @blogdiva See idk about that. I think nature is practical in the sense that things die that others can live, but it's not practical for wealth to concentrate. It's terrible for the economy as we've seen.
@RickiTarr
yeah capitalism won't work in the long run. it's basically generating wealth by stealing... one of the practical considerations i was also thinking of was that i dont want to wait to become a victim of capitalism before trying to create something better... the only way i could make that happen is by collective action...

@kitsastro @RickiTarr

As @alexch notes, the system, capitalism or otherwise, can't systemically prevent theft.

This isn't to say that the current system isn't corrupt, it is. But the laws which once forbade things like continuous interest on loans have been rewritten to allow it. More significantly, articles of incorporation now limit the liability of chartants, the specific goal of this is to allow chartered groups and individuals to accrue more responsibility than they can be held to account for. The premise is that accrual of wealth should have no limit, achieved by discarding the penalties for dishonest and predatory commerce. That is certainly a corruption that destroys equity. It is a fraud that facilitates bad faith.

If I rewire a car so badly that it stops working, that doesn't mean that cars can never work. But fixing cars is hard, and cars will still malfunction from simple wear, even when carefully maintained. Even as the idea of a car can continue, the actual cars have to be discarded and new ones built. Staying with the car analogy a little further, we can also see (now, starkly) that problems arise from very large numbers of cars (pollution, over investment investment in roads).

Simply avoiding or negating capitalism has a whole doesn't solve the larger problems of scale and scope. Promises of perfect systems and complete justice are always false, as they ignore physics, the set of circumstances in which and by which we live and die. Civilization's intent is (was?) to share work and risk and suffering and benefit, which are all inherent to and essential for life. But the success of that pact is still limited, and the success of an individual, or a family or a town or a nation or the life on a planet is never certain. What is certain is that we can understand what is happening, also that we have to take it seriously enough to keep our expectations modest and in proportion to the context (back to physics and physical reality).