miss_demeanourGuided By Voices
nexguyCommunism isn’t bad. Socialism isn’t bad. Capitalism isn’t bad. It’s what humans do with them that is bad. Don’t be a greedy dick and they would all work fine.
Boomer Humor DoomergodI concur: Humans are awful and deserve extinction.
Bloody apathetic planet. I’ve no sympathy at all.
knitwitt
irelephant [he/him]Humans are shaped by the system they live in
Humans built the system.
And humans can rebuild the system.
Yes, and it will be even worse.
Obi
YoSoySnekBoiAnd capitalism...doesn't?
Jorunn (she/her)No? Socialism literally removes incentives to be corrupt. Why would you accept a bribe f.ex if your needs are covered and money is either gone or no longer useful to hoard? That’s not to say that any sort of socialist society would be free of all bad actors, but there’s less reason and less ways to abuse socialism because that’s sort of the point. The goal of socialism is to remove abusable systems via more democratically and collectively controlled ones.
The truth is the opposite. A concentration of small government power is an incentive for those who seek power(as these types of humans will always exist). Processes are inefficient and slow incentivizing bribes(greed will always exist). A lack of incentive to innovate promotes stagnation and complacency(lazy acceptance of an internal takover).
A concentration of small government power
You aren’t describing what socialism is as you have no idea what it is.
Processes are inefficient and slow incentivizing bribes(greed will always exist).
You keep bringing up greed. Capitalism doesn’t account for greed, it is built on it. It doesn’t stop greed from being abused, instead it rewards greed by allowing the few to hoard property and wealth which leads to those few holding more and more power and influence. Capitalism is literally designed like a pyramid scheme which everyone agrees is bad and doesn’t work.
Socialism is the idea that if you work at a workplace you own it along with everyone else there. It’s the idea that if you live in a home you own it with the other people that live there. It’s the idea that we all own the roads and parks together. It’s the idea that decision making (political power) and property is shared. There are centralized ways to do this, and decentralized ways to do this. The states you think are communist are shitty little oligarchies that pretend they will implement communism in the future yet never do. The problem with these states is that they aren’t socialist, not that socialism is bad.
A lack of incentive to innovate promotes stagnation and complacency(lazy acceptance of an internal takover).
Most scientific advances are state sponsored.
Hostile takeover is a thing that happens regularly in capitalism. Also liberals are always the first to compromise and then form governments with fascists. So that’s more of a capitalism thing I think.
Philosophically, capitalism is built on the understanding that while humans are driven by a wide number of motivations, self interest is the only motivation you can reliably expect people to follow. Any system that depends on people putting the needs of others above their self interest is doomed to become a casualty of human nature.
Yes, people sometimes behave altruistically, but depending on people consistently choosing altruism is a fool’s game.
Socialism is built on the idea that we are better at enforcing our rights together, not on putting anyone else above yourself. I have no idea where this notion comes from. Again, you people have no idea what socialism is.
Banding together to collectively negotiate is fully compatible with the philosophy of capitalism. Under a free market, individuals are free to associate and disassociate as they please. What isn’t compatible is forcing other people to band together even if they don’t want to.
If you strike break, you will be arrested by the police.
If you compensate someone’s work with a wage, you will be arrested by the police.
You have no freedom to associate by your own will.
I’m pretty sure that the most corrupt people in the world don’t worry about having their basic needs covered. Simultaneously, democratically elected officials also tend to be highly corrupt too.
Within a system where you can hoard wealth and property. You can’t under socialism.
How do you stop someone from hoarding wealth.
Land ownership is the way it is because someone with a polity stick decided that they had the exclusive right to parcel it out at their discretion, despite the fact that all humans are born into the earth with an equal claim to it. The method in which land is distributed is not a feature of either capitalism or socialism, but a matter in and of itself.
The main conflict is the inability to maintain constant awareness and involvement in all aspects.
It’s so prevalent, it has been easily weaponized.
People can’t care about everything equally. We have bias and we will act in service of that bias whether we realize it or not. And it is why an egalitarian society cannot last long.
What you care about and what i care about will unavoidably come into a conflict harsh enough or enough times that resentment becomes the only answer.
And that is enough for any few bad actors to steer an unwitting populace into a downward spiral towards decay.
Right now i think it doesn’t matter as much the form of government because people need an incentive to care. Having their needs met means it’s not something to care about and so won’t care about it.
People care when they don’t have their needs met.
The point is getting them to act on it.
Get the people to act and it won’t matter which government exists because there is no government without the people to govern.
Having their needs met means it’s not something to care about and so won’t care about it.
A big part of why the US is struggling so much is people don’t have the time and energy to care because they are too busy working.
Protests and riots also either happen either because A: people have time to do them, or B: people have time to do them because working no longer provides enough money to live off of.
You are right however that misinformation isn’t being countered and that any would be free society would need to work on ways to help people see through such things, and to not allow misinfo to be freely spread the way it is now. It’s another core part of the problems we face now, but it’s made worse by people literally not having the time to get involved in any way with politics, and with news being motivated purely by profits. Writing good articles isn’t profitable anymore, but eye-catching headlines is, regardless of how true they are. If you are concerned about the quality of information today you should also be concerned about news being profit driven.
And in fact, in communism, acts of corruption would stick out more and can be responded to easier.
Don’t be a greedy dick
Sure thing… it’s not like capitalism is fundamentally designed to empower the pathologically greedy or anything, eh?
What do the pathologically greedy do in a socialist or communist system? They find a way to gain power except they have almost no competition.
The parts where legitimate attempts at a socialist society has been attempted anywhere in the world…of which all failed for human dickish reasons.
No - you will point out these (supposed) “legitimate attempts at a socialist society” you speak of.
I could very well be. If only there was a way for you to do your own research on attempts at creating a true socialist society at the national level. Seems pretty important to the point of this thread and something you would not want to leave to a stranger who might talk out of his ass.
I could very well be.
No - it’s established. You don’t have a damn clue what you are talking about - and now you’re backpedalling.
Then I recommend the you do NOT search for attempts at creating a socialist society. You get to keep not knowing and I don’t have to do a 2 minute search for you. It’s a win-win.
The point of asking for examples is to make sure that you yourself know about the talking points you’re spewing.
Just downvote the sea lion and move on.
I didn’t need to do research because i already knew about these successful societies.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Family
…wikipedia.org/…/Democratic_Autonomous_Administra…
…m.wikipedia.org/…/Twin_Oaks_Community,_Virginia
My guess is you where trying to refere to the ridiculous attempts by the soviet union which to my understanding where designed to fail to set an example. (Look it up)
The core issue is that a nation has a centralized government that is always opposes to disbanding itself. Lenins vanguard party was a fascist takeover of marxist decentralized principles. (look it up)
You didn’t list any socialist societies. The first is a group of people who go camping annually together then go back to their real lives(in a capitalist society). Second is an authoritarian society which bans independent media and the third is another group where you vacation in this society until you get tired of it and just leave to your real life so that another can join(they also ban media).
Unless banning types of media is ok now for socialist societies?
None of them are an actual socialist nation. I wouldn’t be thinking of the Soviets, no. There was nothing socialist about them other than an initial. I wasn’t hinking of any in particular because there are not any. I wish there were and I hope for one but there isn’t one yet.
I have no contacts within the latest two but there are absolutely people in the rainbow family who live like that all year round with their entire family.
They are nomadic, have no homeland. There is no leadership, no scarcity (they often have leftovers they don’t know what to do with) its pure anarchistic communism.
Also dont trust to much from what you see online, these communities are aware bad actors and governments dislike them. You need to be invited for actual whereabouts.
This may be a possible reason why the syrian group may democratically ellect against media presence. What i found most interesting about them is that its one of the first Islamic communities i heard of that explicitly calls for equal gender rights.
LibertyLizardEvery system of government is designed to empower the shitheads who came up with it.
Marxism is explicitly not designed that way. Like it’s the entire fucking point.
And yes, I’m aware of how attempts at Marxism have gone.
It may have been the point but the results speak for themselves, and much analysis has pointed out the factors in Marx’s ideas that led to these outcomes.
So I stand by my statement.
Yup, read about the early history of Marxism. It’s the same power struggle BS as every other ideology.
There’s nothing morally wrong with being greedy by itself. If someone does a good thing for selfish reasons, that’s still a good thing. If I decide to become a doctor because I selfishly want respect, admiration, and social or monetary capital, the world is still better off for me doing so. Sick people will get better.
Greed only becomes bad when you empower people to use violence to keep themselves on top. Most often it is the threat of state violence that forces people into situations where abuse occurs.
No, you can’t disassociate from my factory because I own the patent (says the state), I own the land (says the state), and I own the distribution liscences, (says the state). If you violate my state given rights, the police will come and beat you. I can abuse you, and you can’t leave because the state will punish you if you do. It’s against the principals of the free market.
There’s nothing morally wrong with being greedy by itself.
Says who?
It’s against the principals of the free market.
What other mythical things do you believe in, liberal?
The tooth fairy, perhaps?
Come liberal, don’t be shy… tell me all the magical thinking you engage in on a regular business.
I’m willing to bet the ridiculous idea of a (so-called) “free market” isn’t even the worst one you’ve swallowed.
Self interest is a massive part of the open-source movement which is inherently anti-capitalist.
Are you not reading the comments above you? Figure it out yourself.
How about you define those two terms yourself, and re-read the comment thread.
You’re not having a meaningful discussion by arguing the semantics around “self-interest” and “constructive greed”.