Western democracies are no longer fit for purpose. - Page 7 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

All general discussion about politics that doesn't belong in any of the other forums.

Moderator: PoFo Political Circus Mods

#15140293
Wolvenbear wrote:
The inordinate focus on the laborers, as "without them, there would be no product to sell" ignores that this is true of EVERY step of the chain. Without the boss, there would be no product for the laborer to make, no building to make it in, no tools to make it with, no capital to purchase the necessary materials, and no wage for the production. After it was made, it would have no outlet to be sold, no marketing to tell the populous that it had been made, no transportation to get to market, and no mechanism to reap the profits to make more.



This is all fucking warm 'n' fuzzy and everything, but, according to capitalist *exchange values* (money), it's not like everyone just throws something into a potluck pot and out comes a banquet dish for everyone.

I'll leave some 'resources' here, and you can feel free if and how to respond, as you like.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show
Image



[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

Spoiler: show
Image




Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment. But for the full development of Life to its highest mode of perfection, something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism. If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first. At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the men of science, the men of culture – in a word, the real men, the men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial realisation. Upon the other hand, there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, and being always on the brink of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the work of beasts of burden, to do work that is quite uncongenial to them, and to which they are forced by the peremptory, unreasonable, degrading Tyranny of want. These are the poor, and amongst them there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilisation, or culture, or refinement in pleasures, or joy of life. From their collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is poor is in himself absolutely of no importance. He is merely the infinitesimal atom of a force that, so far from regarding him, crushes him: indeed, prefers him crushed, as in that case he is far more obedient.



https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... /soul-man/
#15140331
QatzelOk wrote:Whatever your personal opinions on this or that housing model, the USA (and Canada, and...) is screwed housing-wise.

This is what its "Western Democracy" has created.

Tent cities and SUVs. Empty hotels and parking lots where forests used to be.


There are some issue's, but people living in tent cities either have mental issues that need to be addressed or made some very stupid decisions in their lives.
In both cases its not a housing issue, but rather a social health issue, or education issue.
#15140356
QatzelOk wrote:"the proper context"

As opposed to "improper contexts" like nature itself? Your use of the word "proper" here suggests that you possess gnostic knowledge that allows you to determine "which contexts" humans should be trapped into.


It is not exclusive to myself at all, oddly enough.

I do not think it is gnostic.

I think it is generally well known -- of course, there are people with twisted and bizarre visions of how society should be, and these people are not altogether fools. Indeed, they probably were driven by their big brains to the ridiculous from trying to be rational at fatal levels of autism.

"personal growth & self-actualization"

Doesn't nature provide this much better than fake societies? Ex. Look at all the lack of personal growth and self-actualization that the "discovery of the Americas" provided to the people who were "discovered." Or the destruction of opportunities for natural self actualization that are caused by worklife, wars, and TV isolation in the burbs. Car companies brainwash people into seeking "self-actualization" through the purchase of certain high-end brands. Etc.

I think you are placing the "blame" for deteriorating social and environmental conditions on "nature itself" while you are thanking all the behavioralism and control institutions who reduce our freedom to almost nothing, and then offer small coping methods (like praying and drug use) as "means" to buy back some sense of order amongst all the obvious disorder.

If nature can't provide the things you list as positive, how can the lies and fakery of the spectacle society possibly do any better?


I think the state of nature is stone age tribes engaged in warfare for the scarce resources available, occasionally allowing themselves to trade fruit for animal teeth & sea shells, and occasionally beating each other to death with clubs for access to younger, prettier women.

The way that we envision nature as sufficient unto itself is the product of society -- we achieve comfort, and then fantasize about limitless leisure and easy living. Of course, who would not want that? It's not a bad aim. But this is also not nature. It's a vision of a new Eden.

... Of course, society cannot give us Eden, either. It can only work to try to achieve a balance between order and liberty, and give a space for self-actualization and growth, as well as give people access to knoweldge.
#15140357
ckaihatsu wrote:From a *political* standpoint I'd say that we need to eliminate the existing capitalist social hierarchy based on *wealth* so that society's efforts can be towards *collective* interests in common, like that of infrastructure, health care, education, food, housing, utilities, etc. -- such would go a long way towards the cessation of *alienating* and *marginalizing* people, displacing them into domains of tyrannical micro-management -- the psychological disorders you itemize.


I do not think anybody is interested in that. If they were, classic Marxist movements would still be popular, and the dozens of countries that tried Communism would not have been catastrophes.

Obviously, I do not mind collectivizing to some degree. I am not some hyper-Capitalist. But why should it not be the case that the men & women who work 60 hours a week don't get paid handsomely, and the men & women who work humble jobs for 30-40 hours a week, that require no training and much of it is spent sitting down or posting on PoFo, get less..?

Why shouldn't entrepreneurs be rewarded for their risks and providing lots of jobs?

Moreover, what has been the greatest driving force for improving the conditions of the marginalized? The free market has eliminated lots of poverty. As have sensible state programs. Communism created poverty where wealth once existed, and eliminated human freedom.

Only someone who lives entirely in their head & in the realm of theories can still delude themselves into thinking that it could all be different if just everyone would do it slightly differently...

ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, then what's *your* policy approach to people who are anti-social and/or have special needs? Warehousing?


Subsidizing private charities and facilities that meet certain standards and rewarding the ones that meet the standards well with better funding.

It's silly to think everyone who isn't a Communist is a barbarian when the 20th century showed that it is usually the Communists who are the barbarians.

ckaihatsu wrote:Not in this instance -- BJ is invoking *biblical* / ancient social conditions to refer to our 21st century present-day reality, as if we're all just emerging from village life to encounter each other in the cities for the first time.


Then why not make good arguments against him and not just invoke a stupid scare-word?

You can also report him for racism. The forum does not tolerate any form of racism, dontcha know.

The forum's servers are in Germany -- you can even go to jail for wrong-think there.

ckaihatsu wrote:So your political concern here is over, what, international cultural integration? Got a manifesto for that handy, or is this all just a bullshit *imputation* of liberal-utopian-type idealizations?


I thought your idea that it's cool to live in a super-diverse cosmopolitan metropolis because we have Google Translate & Wikipedia was a silly statement.

ckaihatsu wrote:Oh, well, in *that* case you *know* what happens next -- look at the Roman Empire and the way *it* went. It became so dependent on 'barbarian' 'mercenaries' for warfare and for farming that it couldn't sustain the elitist social pyramid anymore and the whole civilization collapsed into the Dark Ages, which relied on monastic preservation of past culture.


You can go read about why the Dark Ages is a misnomer somewhere, if you like.

But yes, sure, Western Rome collapsed.
#15140392
Verv wrote:
I do not think anybody is interested in that. If they were, classic Marxist movements would still be popular, and the dozens of countries that tried Communism would not have been catastrophes.



So you're here at PoFo to simply tell us about your *opinions*, making them sound as if they actually reflect social reality. So either you're a brilliant demographer or a shit-spewer.

Do you realize that there's a certain *flow* of causes-and-effects to how history progresses over time, and that countries didn't simply 'try-out', or 'experiment' with Stalinism / big-C "Communism" -- it's that they needed to *industrialize* in the 20th century and the leading advanced industrialized Western powers didn't *want* them to since that would just cause *competition* geopolitically.

BJ was talking a lot about marginalized, lumpenproletariat kinds of people, but neither you or he are suggesting any kind of social-service types of social *policies*. BJ just *blames* them outright, scapegoating them for the sake of his social-hierarchy kind of politics, unfortunately.


Verv wrote:
Obviously, I do not mind collectivizing to some degree. I am not some hyper-Capitalist. But why should it not be the case that the men & women who work 60 hours a week don't get paid handsomely, and the men & women who work humble jobs for 30-40 hours a week, that require no training and much of it is spent sitting down or posting on PoFo, get less..?



*Or* -- let's throw out that entire economics of *wage labor* (wage-slavery), and just make sure that our latest whiz-bang technology and production techniques *provide* what people need the most, and then figure out all of the rest -- the *discretionary* stuff, *later* -- ?

This is what my fully-automated-luxury-communism politics is *all about* -- here's an early graphic illustration, for background:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

Spoiler: show
Image



---


Verv wrote:
Why shouldn't entrepreneurs be rewarded for their risks and providing lots of jobs?



Because you're under a *misconception* -- much financial risk, especially at the *corporate* level is *underwritten* by the government, and jobs have to do with the jobs *market*, and not with 'entrepreneurial zeal', as you seem to think.


Verv wrote:
Moreover, what has been the greatest driving force for improving the conditions of the marginalized? The free market has eliminated lots of poverty.



But, to the extent that it *has*, has been an unintentional *byproduct* of generic economic expansion and consumer technology -- we as a society could do *much* better, especially by taking such research-&-development out of *corporate*, profit-making hands, so that such could be determined and implemented *collectively*, perhaps using an online forum like here at PoFo.


Verv wrote:
As have sensible state programs. Communism created poverty where wealth once existed, and eliminated human freedom.



You sound a lot like JohnRawls. My exchanges with him got to the point where he simply couldn't acknowledge that historical Stalinism is *not* Communist-Manifesto-type *communism*, and I would have to *parse* his statements to make that correction before we could go further.

It would look like this:


[quote=]

As have sensible state programs. [Stalinism] created poverty where wealth once existed, and eliminated human freedom.[/quote]


---


Verv wrote:
Only someone who lives entirely in their head & in the realm of theories can still delude themselves into thinking that it could all be different if just everyone would do it slightly differently...



Are you implying that my head is in-the-clouds because I subscribe to an *idealized* kind of politics, naively wishing to win a popularity contest so that the world will change to match my vision -- ?


Consciousness, A Material Definition

Spoiler: show
Image



If so, that's *quite* an insulting *stereotype* and an imputation. If you continue with this kind of lazy, egocentric kind of attitude you're going to run into some real *problems* on a forum like this. Consider yourself *warned*.


Verv wrote:
Subsidizing private charities and facilities that meet certain standards and rewarding the ones that meet the standards well with better funding.



Yeah? Like it's never been tried before? How's that going so far?


Verv wrote:
It's silly to think everyone who isn't a Communist is a barbarian when the 20th century showed that it is usually the Communists who are the barbarians.



Oh, okay, how so?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Not in this instance -- BJ is invoking *biblical* / ancient social conditions to refer to our 21st century present-day reality, as if we're all just emerging from village life to encounter each other in the cities for the first time.



Verv wrote:
Then why not make good arguments against him and not just invoke a stupid scare-word?



'Scare-word' -- ? Which? 'Biblical' -- ? *That's* a 'scare-word', in your mindset?


Verv wrote:
You can also report him for racism. The forum does not tolerate any form of racism, dontcha know.



What did he say that was racist?


Verv wrote:
The forum's servers are in Germany -- you can even go to jail for wrong-think there.



Be careful in your travels, then.


x D


Verv wrote:
I thought your idea that it's cool to live in a super-diverse cosmopolitan metropolis because we have Google Translate & Wikipedia was a silly statement.



You're just making shit up -- I never *said* or *implied* such -- I meant that the communication *barriers* of the ancient world don't exist today, due to publicly available Internet technologies.


Verv wrote:
You can go read about why the Dark Ages is a misnomer somewhere, if you like.



Or you can make your case here yourself.


Verv wrote:
But yes, sure, Western Rome collapsed.
#15140415
ckaihatsu wrote:So you're here at PoFo to simply tell us about your *opinions*, making them sound as if they actually reflect social reality. So either you're a brilliant demographer or a shit-spewer.

Do you realize that there's a certain *flow* of causes-and-effects to how history progresses over time, and that countries didn't simply 'try-out', or 'experiment' with Stalinism / big-C "Communism" -- it's that they needed to *industrialize* in the 20th century and the leading advanced industrialized Western powers didn't *want* them to since that would just cause *competition* geopolitically.


Where's the flow to Communism?

Or have you moved the goalpost so far that when we enter a post-scarcity economy, you'll claim it was all thanks to Marx?

BJ was talking a lot about marginalized, lumpenproletariat kinds of people, but neither you or he are suggesting any kind of social-service types of social *policies*. BJ just *blames* them outright, scapegoating them for the sake of his social-hierarchy kind of politics, unfortunately.


I think all people do have agency over themselves, but we should also be charitable to them. So, it's a mix...

*Or* -- let's throw out that entire economics of *wage labor* (wage-slavery), and just make sure that our latest whiz-bang technology and production techniques *provide* what people need the most, and then figure out all of the rest -- the *discretionary* stuff, *later* -- ?

This is what my fully-automated-luxury-communism politics is *all about* -- here's an early graphic illustration, for background:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

Spoiler: show
Image



Oh, so you are serious about taking credit for Star Trekk Socialism now, yes?


Because you're under a *misconception* -- much financial risk, especially at the *corporate* level is *underwritten* by the government, and jobs have to do with the jobs *market*, and not with 'entrepreneurial zeal', as you seem to think.

That has become the case on certain levels, certainly.

Our risks are also underwritten by the government in most Western societies, as well. And we benefit greatly from Corporate welfare -- just ask the people who work on those industires.

But, to the extent that it *has*, has been an unintentional *byproduct* of generic economic expansion and consumer technology -- we as a society could do *much* better, especially by taking such research-&-development out of *corporate*, profit-making hands, so that such could be determined and implemented *collectively*, perhaps using an online forum like here at PoFo.


Judging by the sort of life that poor people have in the modern West, I do not see how we could do much ebtter.

You sound a lot like JohnRawls. My exchanges with him got to the point where he simply couldn't acknowledge that historical Stalinism is *not* Communist-Manifesto-type *communism*, and I would have to *parse* his statements to make that correction before we could go further.

It would look like this:


[quote=]

As have sensible state programs. [Stalinism] created poverty where wealth once existed, and eliminated human freedom.

[/quote]

We are not all obliged to step into the most massive theoretical construct on the Forum to entertain Communism in our discussions.

We can simply point out the lived reality of 20th century Communism.

After all, would you let a Capitalist saying that's not real Capitalism get away with this?


If so, that's *quite* an insulting *stereotype* and an imputation. If you continue with this kind of lazy, egocentric kind of attitude you're going to run into some real *problems* on a forum like this. Consider yourself *warned*.


Duly warned.

Yeah? Like it's never been tried before? How's that going so far?


Pretty great -- Korea is a wonderful country to live in. As are many Western countries.

Far better than the failed Communist experiments.


Oh, okay, how so?


Gulags; Khmer Rouge.


'Scare-word' -- ? Which? 'Biblical' -- ? *That's* a 'scare-word', in your mindset?


Racist was the word.



What did he say that was racist?


You called him a racist.


You're just making shit up -- I never *said* or *implied* such -- I meant that the communication *barriers* of the ancient world don't exist today, due to publicly available Internet technologies.


I thought that was what you meant when you simply said Google Translate & Wikipedia to one of his comments concerning our inability to live together due to diversity.


Or you can make your case here yourself.


I enjoy interacting with other people just as much as I enjoy interacting with you.

I would not want to give you a total monopoly of how I spend my time on this forum.
#15140439
Verv wrote:Moreover, what has been the greatest driving force for improving the conditions of the marginalized? The free market has eliminated lots of poverty. As have sensible state programs. Communism created poverty where wealth once existed, and eliminated human freedom.

Communist states needed to be dictatorships without human rights because anybody with any ability or ambition wants to GTFO. In communist states, people with ability and ambition are forced to be slaves whose "surplus value" is stolen and given to the poor, lazy, and less able so they can be lifted up to the median.

I'm not Satan, anyone who works or can't work shouldn't live in poverty, but it's also nice to live in a society where good decisions (and those of your parents) are rewarded and bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. There's lots of stories of dumb athletes and celebs who spend all their money on dumb things and go bankrupt and nobody is there to bail them out...there's nothing more beautiful than this.

Only someone who lives entirely in their head & in the realm of theories can still delude themselves into thinking that it could all be different if just everyone would do it slightly differently...

Things always work out on paper exactly as planned and reality isn't at all complex where policies have unintended consequences no sir!
#15140478
ckaihatsu wrote:What are you implying to be the rich business top-down 'reset', this time around?

What I am implying is obvious.

That the lack of empathy towards the working classes makes it impossible for a top-down "reset" to improve human life or the relationship between humans and other species. The elite can't do this. They can only separate and control. That's why they exist.

All top-down resets - whether world wars, well poisonings, land enclosures, potato famines, or suburban flight... will all enrich the controlling elite at the expense of the quality of life of almost everyone else.

Western democracies are top-down and colonial, so this is important. Lockdowns were the first choice of "the free world." Why? Because business tycoons are "free" to abuse the population in our system.

Unthinking Majority wrote:In communist states, people with ability and ambition are forced to be slaves whose "surplus value" is stolen and given to the poor, lazy, and less able so they can be lifted up to the median.

Have you ever been to a communist state to see if it is, in fact, more slave-like than you own? If not, you are getting your information from Cold War agitprop since what you have written is not grounded in theory or in my lived experience of visiting Cuba - where people are far less slave-like than North Americans are.

Likewise, exploitation of labor (slavery) was very popular in capitalist countries, not communist ones. So you are twisting the narrative in ways that seem normal because we live under the Gods of Capital and all their lies.


Verv wrote:I think the state of nature is stone age tribes engaged in warfare for the scarce resources available

Well then I can understand why you're so eager to destroy that natural state. Perhaps God told you to do this at some level? "Destroy My Creation!"
#15140531
ckaihatsu wrote:This is all fucking warm 'n' fuzzy and everything, but, according to capitalist *exchange values* (money), it's not like everyone just throws something into a potluck pot and out comes a banquet dish for everyone.

I'll leave some 'resources' here, and you can feel free if and how to respond, as you like.


I'm not certain what you're trying to argue. And your initial graph is simply incorrect as it says that all profits are immediately spent on workers or shareholders. Since that's not how businesses work, I feel little point in trying to decipher your meaning.

"Socialism...rah rah" quote


The idea that employment is "evil" is among one of the stupidest I have ever heard. That the worker does not like his labor is among the least important of considerations I have ever heard. And even in this little rant, it is beyond clear that the man of means who prevents 50 employees from starving to death is far more valuable than the employees themselves.

This is the problem with socialism/ists...they view things in childish terms.
#15140540
Verv wrote:
I do not think anybody is interested in that. If they were, classic Marxist movements would still be popular, and the dozens of countries that tried Communism would not have been catastrophes.



ckaihatsu wrote:
So you're here at PoFo to simply tell us about your *opinions*, making them sound as if they actually reflect social reality. So either you're a brilliant demographer or a shit-spewer.

Do you realize that there's a certain *flow* of causes-and-effects to how history progresses over time, and that countries didn't simply 'try-out', or 'experiment' with Stalinism / big-C "Communism" -- it's that they needed to *industrialize* in the 20th century and the leading advanced industrialized Western powers didn't *want* them to since that would just cause *competition* geopolitically.



Verv wrote:
Where's the flow to Communism?

Or have you moved the goalpost so far that when we enter a post-scarcity economy, you'll claim it was all thanks to Marx?



You're missing the point -- you're trying to conflate the *politics* of socialism / Marxism, with the historical *emergence* of Stalinism, for historical reasons, which is *not* socialism or Marxism in any way, since the workers of the world did *not* control social production in the USSR.


Verv wrote:
I think all people do have agency over themselves, but we should also be charitable to them. So, it's a mix...



I think revolutionary politics speaks to this, because, with the advent of industrialization, and now *automation* of industrial mass production, the ratio of individual work time to individual free time can be *far* less than 1:1. (Meaning that we conventionally may conceptualize 1 hour of work time as providing the worker with the means to live 1 hour of 'free', non-work time, sleep excluded.)

As more and more items -- even housing -- are produced *automatically*, without significant amounts of human labor, people can more easily avail themselves of what they need for modern life and living, *without* having to work their lives away for it.

Under *workers* collective control automated industrial mass production could solidly be a part of 'the commons', with its production available to all, like the blowing wind or the rain from the sky.


Verv wrote:
Oh, so you are serious about taking credit for Star Trekk Socialism now, yes?



It's pretty-good, as fiction, goes, for the sake of conceptualization and illustration, but, obviously, our real-world situation is unique and wouldn't really parallel *that* premise, exactly.


Verv wrote:
That has become the case on certain levels, certainly.

Our risks are also underwritten by the government in most Western societies, as well. And we benefit greatly from Corporate welfare -- just ask the people who work on those industires.



Agreed. I'll note that, historically, the inter-imperialist friction, resulting in 2+ world wars, has mostly been around *how tightly* a country's corporations / major companies should be *integrated* with their nationalist government.

In both West and East the major players get *government support*, as you're describing, but the West, historically, took exception to the East's *tight*, *authoritarian* style of centralized production, especially for the sake of catch-up industrialization and militarization. Just a sidenote.


---


Verv wrote:
Moreover, what has been the greatest driving force for improving the conditions of the marginalized? The free market has eliminated lots of poverty.



ckaihatsu wrote:
But, to the extent that it *has*, has been an unintentional *byproduct* of generic economic expansion and consumer technology -- we as a society could do *much* better, especially by taking such research-&-development out of *corporate*, profit-making hands, so that such could be determined and implemented *collectively*, perhaps using an online forum like here at PoFo.



Verv wrote:
Judging by the sort of life that poor people have in the modern West, I do not see how we could do much ebtter.



You seem to be thinking of *civil society*, and/or 'the streets', specifically, but I'm indicating that it's the *workers* / proletariat who are the ones in society who actually *make stuff* -- the stuff that all of us *need*, and want, for our modern lives and living.

As things are now we rely on the satisfaction of the wealthy's drive for profit-making, to drive social production, for the production of the commodities / stuff that we need and want -- but, under *workers* control we could cut-out the 'middleman' of equity capital and private profit-making, so that whatever workers produce goes *directly* to those who need it.

My shorthand for this is 'a landscape of piles of stuff', with workers controlling the constituent workplaces to do the work to *replenish* the piles of stuff. (See that 'Multi-Tiered' illustration.)


Verv wrote:
We are not all obliged to step into the most massive theoretical construct on the Forum to entertain Communism in our discussions.

We can simply point out the lived reality of 20th century Communism.

After all, would you let a Capitalist saying that's not real Capitalism get away with this?



Allow me to put it *this* way -- I'm open to discussing *any* ideology or approach on the grounds of both *theory* and *practice*, and past 'practice' is *historical*, which is not guaranteed to match-up to 'theory', just as our own personal goals may not always be accomplished in a straight-line, or at all.


Consciousness, A Material Definition

Spoiler: show
Image



---


Verv wrote:
Duly warned.



---


Verv wrote:
Subsidizing private charities and facilities that meet certain standards and rewarding the ones that meet the standards well with better funding.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Yeah? Like it's never been tried before? How's that going so far?



Verv wrote:
Pretty great -- Korea is a wonderful country to live in. As are many Western countries.

Far better than the failed Communist experiments.



Then why are there still homeless people and long lines for food banks, and people needing all kinds of social assistance with their personal situations? How would you propose to *address* this ongoing phenomenon with whatever your politics are -- ?

I don't defend the Stalinist mode of production, and, technically, *no* mode of production is an 'experiment', anywhere -- it's more like a materially-prevailing social *ability*, for social production. (Note the historical transition from feudalism to capitalism, for example.)


---


Verv wrote:
It's silly to think everyone who isn't a Communist is a barbarian when the 20th century showed that it is usually the Communists who are the barbarians.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Oh, okay, how so?



Verv wrote:
Gulags; Khmer Rouge.



Yeah, again, those were *Stalinists*, and they received the geopolitical support of both the U.S. and China.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Not in this instance -- BJ is invoking *biblical* / ancient social conditions to refer to our 21st century present-day reality, as if we're all just emerging from village life to encounter each other in the cities for the first time.



Verv wrote:
Then why not make good arguments against him and not just invoke a stupid scare-word?



ckaihatsu wrote:
'Scare-word' -- ? Which? 'Biblical' -- ? *That's* a 'scare-word', in your mindset?



Verv wrote:
Racist was the word.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
What did he say that was racist?



Verv wrote:
You called him a racist.



I wasn't characterizing BJ as a racist in order to *scare* him -- this is what he said:


blackjack21 wrote:
Then, you throw in the race and culture mixing through mass immigration, problems of language adoption, acculturation and assimilation and you have yet another set of problems expressly created by the neoliberals. Much of a population can tolerate some of this. However, some significant percentage of the population cannot--very often including my enumerated list above--and it leads to further social problems. Increase it to a biblical mass of Babel where people cannot speak to each other, because they don't share a common language and you end up with very serious discord.



He was being socially *fatalist* based on alleged hard-wired / biological *racial* and cultural qualities. He was alleging that people could never be socially and culturally cosmopolitan, due to ingrained differences of *race* / biology. That's *racist*.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're just making shit up -- I never *said* or *implied* such -- I meant that the communication *barriers* of the ancient world don't exist today, due to publicly available Internet technologies.



Verv wrote:
I thought that was what you meant when you simply said Google Translate & Wikipedia to one of his comments concerning our inability to live together due to diversity.



Diversity *enables* people's abilities to live-together -- apartheid makes that *difficult*, and even *impossible*.


---


Verv wrote:
You can go read about why the Dark Ages is a misnomer somewhere, if you like.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Or you can make your case here yourself.



Verv wrote:
I enjoy interacting with other people just as much as I enjoy interacting with you.

I would not want to give you a total monopoly of how I spend my time on this forum.
#15140543
ckaihatsu wrote:He was alleging that people could never be socially and culturally cosmopolitan, due to ingrained differences of *race* / biology. That's *racist*.

Some people. Not all people.

ckaihatsu wrote:Diversity *enables* people's abilities to live-together -- apartheid makes that *difficult*, and even *impossible*.

Studies suggest that people with relatively high IQs are able to adapt to a cosmopolitan environment, but people with low IQs tend to struggle. Environmental stressors like a recession or wage depression add to that discord.

If you don't generalize what I'm saying, it's not hard to look at places where there have been long term strife among different groups and understand what I'm saying. If you see Azeris and Armenians fighting, is it the best you can do to just say, "They're just racists."?
#15140548
Unthinking Majority wrote:
Communist states needed to be dictatorships without human rights because anybody with any ability or ambition wants to GTFO. In communist states, people with ability and ambition are forced to be slaves whose "surplus value" is stolen and given to the poor, lazy, and less able so they can be lifted up to the median.

I'm not Satan, anyone who works or can't work shouldn't live in poverty, but it's also nice to live in a society where good decisions (and those of your parents) are rewarded and bad decisions lead to bad outcomes.



You're back to your bad habit of thinking that the U.S. economy is somehow *meritocratic* -- it's *not*:



Unprecedented in size and scope,[9] the legislation is the largest economic stimulus package in U.S. history,[14] amounting to 10% of total U.S. gross domestic product.[15] The bill is larger than the $831 billion stimulus act passed in 2009 as part of the response to the Great Recession.[15] The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will add $1.7 trillion to the deficits over the 2020–2030 period, with nearly all the impact in 2020 and 2021.[16]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARES_Act




On March 27 the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act, was signed into law by Trump after passing with overwhelming bipartisan support. It is the largest stimulus package in American history with approximately $2.5 trillion in money allocated, almost three times what was allocated in 2008 to bail out the banks.

Included in the bill is $454 billion to finance guaranteed loans to big corporations which is designed to be leveraged by the Federal Reserve Board into some $4.5 trillion in loans and subsidies. This provision amounts to a virtually unlimited backstop for the country’s corporate and financial aristocracy, with no real strings attached.



https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... v-a11.html



---


Unthinking Majority wrote:
There's lots of stories of dumb athletes and celebs who spend all their money on dumb things and go bankrupt and nobody is there to bail them out...there's nothing more beautiful than this.


Things always work out on paper exactly as planned and reality isn't at all complex where policies have unintended consequences no sir!



Business as usual....


Deepwater Horizon oil spill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater ... _oil_spill
Last edited by ckaihatsu on 01 Dec 2020 20:35, edited 1 time in total.
#15140554
QatzelOk wrote:
Lockdowns were the first choice of "the free world." Why? Because business tycoons are "free" to abuse the population in our system.



On this point itself I have to *disagree* -- the elites have been *wanting* a resumption of capitalist wealth accumulation, even to the point of risking workers' lives in the workplace.

I don't think you can provide evidence of a prevailing politician sentiment for full *lockdowns*, anywhere in the world, otherwise it would have happened by now, as medically advised, and we'd be rid of the virus by now.


---


Wolvenbear wrote:
The inordinate focus on the laborers, as "without them, there would be no product to sell" ignores that this is true of EVERY step of the chain. Without the boss, there would be no product for the laborer to make, no building to make it in, no tools to make it with, no capital to purchase the necessary materials, and no wage for the production. After it was made, it would have no outlet to be sold, no marketing to tell the populous that it had been made, no transportation to get to market, and no mechanism to reap the profits to make more.



ckaihatsu wrote:
This is all fucking warm 'n' fuzzy and everything, but, according to capitalist *exchange values* (money), it's not like everyone just throws something into a potluck pot and out comes a banquet dish for everyone.

I'll leave some 'resources' here, and you can feel free if and how to respond, as you like.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show
Image



[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

Spoiler: show
Image



Wolvenbear wrote:
I'm not certain what you're trying to argue. And your initial graph is simply incorrect as it says that all profits are immediately spent on workers or shareholders. Since that's not how businesses work, I feel little point in trying to decipher your meaning.



Actually the term 'profit' doesn't even *appear* in the first diagram. Maybe just stick to the Jack London quotation that's included, and go from there.



The workingmen [...] furnish the labor. The stockholders furnish the capital. By the joint effort of the workingmen and the capital, money is earned. They divide between them this money that is earned. Capital's share is called 'dividends.' Labor's share is called 'wages.'"

_The Iron Heel_ by Jack London, 1907



Wolvenbear wrote:
The idea that employment is "evil" is among one of the stupidest I have ever heard. That the worker does not like his labor is among the least important of considerations I have ever heard. And even in this little rant, it is beyond clear that the man of means who prevents 50 employees from starving to death is far more valuable than the employees themselves.

This is the problem with socialism/ists...they view things in childish terms.



BJ mentioned 'evil', but I haven't at all on this thread. I never called employment 'evil'.

Wilde, in that excerpt I provided, doesn't call employment 'evil', either -- the larger point is that such productive equipment (factories) shouldn't be in *private* hands because then the production and economic *benefits* of that production only go to a few, instead of benefitting *many*.
#15140566
Whilst not disagreeing entirely with the statements made. I would say that it has failed due to the failure of capitalism to achieve its aim of growth through "trickledown". It has created the elite mentioned, who have hijacked the financial system to protect themselves.
Abraham Lincoln said:
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
Sadly this seems to be happening less and less. When it does happen we get into pedantics such as what is truth. If critical in our thinking, guided by ultimate truths such as justice, compassion & equity we will know the truth.

Abraham Lincoln
#15140585
QatzelOk wrote:Have you ever been to a communist state to see if it is, in fact, more slave-like than you own? If not, you are getting your information from Cold War agitprop since what you have written is not grounded in theory or in my lived experience of visiting Cuba - where people are far less slave-like than North Americans are.

Likewise, exploitation of labor (slavery) was very popular in capitalist countries, not communist ones. So you are twisting the narrative in ways that seem normal because we live under the Gods of Capital and all their lies.

There are no facts in the above post.

Maybe ride your bike through the streets of Miami and talk to the Cuban people who had to risk their lives or had loved ones die trying to escape Cuban state slavery. Did you ride your bike through the Castro compound on Castro's private island paid for by the wealth stolen from the Cuban people?

Is it western propaganda that Cuba tightly restricted or banned travel outside the country for many decades? Is it western propaganda that the communists in East Berlin erected a giant guarded barb-wired wall to prevent people in East Berlin from escaping? Are the gulags in the USSR the product of western imaginations?

Are my Vietnamese friends who were arrested multiple times for simply trying to flee the country as refugee boat people lying to everyone? Can you name a single human being who has fled a western country and claimed refugee status elsewhere since the refugee convention was put in place by the UN 70 years ago?
#15140602
ckaihatsu wrote:
He was alleging that people could never be socially and culturally cosmopolitan, due to ingrained differences of *race* / biology. That's *racist*.



blackjack21 wrote:
Some people. Not all people.



So what is it that makes the 'marginalized' people *different* from the overall population, and less likely to be cosmopolitan / diverse in their social interactions? Is it *biology*?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Diversity *enables* people's abilities to live-together -- apartheid makes that *difficult*, and even *impossible*.



blackjack21 wrote:
Studies suggest that people with relatively high IQs are able to adapt to a cosmopolitan environment, but people with low IQs tend to struggle. Environmental stressors like a recession or wage depression add to that discord.

If you don't generalize what I'm saying, it's not hard to look at places where there have been long term strife among different groups and understand what I'm saying. If you see Azeris and Armenians fighting, is it the best you can do to just say, "They're just racists."?



Okay, so you're *moving away* from your former position of indexing according to *race* and *culture* -- now you're pointing to 'low IQ' and 'environmental stressors', which is no longer *biological* (hopefully), but is instead cognizant of *social* / societal factors.


blackjack21 wrote:
Then, you throw in the race and culture mixing through mass immigration, problems of language adoption, acculturation and assimilation and you have yet another set of problems expressly created by the neoliberals. Much of a population can tolerate some of this. However, some significant percentage of the population cannot--very often including my enumerated list above--and it leads to further social problems. Increase it to a biblical mass of Babel where people cannot speak to each other, because they don't share a common language and you end up with very serious discord.



---


Also:



The theory of multiple intelligences proposes the differentiation of human intelligence into specific “modalities of intelligence”, rather than defining intelligence as a single, general ability.[1] The theory has been criticized by mainstream psychology for its lack of empirical evidence, and its dependence on subjective judgement.[2]


Contents

1 Separation criteria
2 The intelligence modalities
2.1 Musical-rhythmic and harmonic
2.2 Visual-spatial
2.3 Verbal-linguistic
2.4 Logical-mathematical
2.5 Bodily-kinesthetic
2.6 Interpersonal
2.7 Intrapersonal
2.8 Naturalistic
2.9 Existential
2.10 Additional intelligences



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of ... elligences
#15140611
QatzelOk wrote:Well then I can understand why you're so eager to destroy that natural state. Perhaps God told you to do this at some level? "Destroy My Creation!"


Man's state of nature is uncomfortable & stressful, but it does have beauty.

Malinowski noted that these naked Papuan tribesmen were very rational people with complex ideas about their own laws and myths. A Christian missionary's book about working in the East Timor area talked about how utterly complex and individualistic their languages could be, and he mentions at points that they had a lot of jokes, close kinship ties, and really just a rich culture... So, while the life was undeniably brutal, I imagine there was somethign also beautiful about it that is lost and unrecoverable.

This lifestyle was not a mistake... and if we were lean men in loin cloths navigating the Amazon river together in the 12th century, I am sure it would have been a blast, although we would both likely be dead before we were 40, with a 25% chance or so that it would be due to violence. We must affirm that all life is beautiful... But, I prefer technological progress and a different social structure.

I sympathize with greatly with environmentalism because I love God. I am entirely convinced that plastics has been a total disaster for our earth -- I think we can recover, but when you go to the Philippines and see regular neighborhoods looking like landfills, plastic and garbage everywhere, you can't help but think that we have done something fundamentally very wrong.

Would it hurt the people of the US if it was declared that we are in a state of emergency, and now we are going to only use paper bags, paper straws, etc.? I do not think so.

I would also like to see meat eating greatly reduced and to force people to not be hypocrites.

Want to eat meat? All people over the age of 13 should report to a slaughterhouse once every five years. In order to be allowed to purchase meat products or order them in restaurants, they must, with their own hand, kill each animal product they intend to have access to.

Can't look a bull in the eyes and then slit its throat? You will not eat beef until you can do so, unless you beg it from the plate of a real man who can, behind closed doors.

We can also have a special category of fine -- if someone reports that Mrs. Carter is eating Mr. Carter's beef, but she couldn't slit the bull's throat, then she has to appear in court & pay a $500 fine, and if her yard is big enough, she has to take care of a calf for six months.

This is justice.
#15140616
@ckaihatsu , there are still homeless people due to choice.

I am not even kidding.

I lived above a homeless shelter for two years -- the rule there was that any homeless person could stay there indefinitely if they did not drink alcohol and followed other basic rules. Of course, they would also provide emergency medical aid to the homeless. All of the homeless in the area were also well dressed -- they distributed fresh clothes to them, and you wuold see them weekly with big shopping bags full of food.

The issue was that those who stayed homeless would be seen drinking at the bus stop benches or in the subway stations, all gathered together, sharing limitless amounts of alcohol.

The same is true in Minneapolis -- the Homeless shelters are revolving doors. The rule is the same -- no drugs & alcohol, and you can come in, shower, wash your clothes or get new ones, and stay indefinitely if you are on the straight & narrow. Most come in for 24 to 48 hours to get clean, get good sleep, dry out, and then go back out to get drunk or booze.

The real tragedy is that some of these are mental cases, and nearly all who are not mental cases are so addicted to substances they have become helpless to help themselves. The thing is, both in Korea and America the laws exist which respect the individuals right to self-destruction.

I saw a recent case of a many of us in the Seoul area knew because he was a homeless man who covered his entire face in shoe polish so he appeared black. Finally, there was a news special that investigated this man... He is mentally disabled, and had a chronic skin rash. The shoe polish made it so that his face did not itch -- yet, it made the rash worse, making it necessary for him to apply more. The woman he was seen with frequently was his older sister, also mentally disabled. Both ran away from their home -- the girl because she hated her older brother (perhaps he abused her in some way, though this is unknown), and the younger followed.

We learned that that the man with the shoe polish face also lived at a Catholic home for the mentally disabled for years where he was known as Gabriel. He still absolutely loved the Priest that he was re-introduced to, yet he would not return to live there because he did not want to abandon his sister... Both parties also love their parents, who inssited they could move back into the home, but they refused this again. They preferred to live on the streets like this, and the only change that was made was that Gabriel was treated long enough to abandon the need to put shoe polish on his face.

It was honestly a touching story... and the amazing point was that the efforts of journalists, the government, their parents, and even the Catholic church could not get both of them to stay in their parents home, a government shelter, or a private charity's shelter, and no law exists which can compel adults to do so against their own will.

ckaihatsu wrote:He was being socially *fatalist* based on alleged hard-wired / biological *racial* and cultural qualities. He was alleging that people could never be socially and culturally cosmopolitan, due to ingrained differences of *race* / biology. That's *racist*.


It is interesting to suggest that people cannot actually be cosmopolitan. This could be the case -- it is a mere illusion. Cultures never actually fully break down on a large scale.

Social fatalism is also a fine enough position. I think the Left draws on this heavily as well: who would think that the average white Southern Baptist from a wealthy background and racist family could ever fully 'overcome' this? It's a common trope. Indeed, we are told by some people that whites have to continuously struggle to overcome their ingrained bias... and I am sure it would not be too difficult to find people who would treat white racism as hard-wired.

There are also implications that there are fundamental, hard-wired differnces between race in terms of behavoral patterns.

In the book, he discusses how genes “affect” and “dictate” behavior which then affects “collective decisions and actions” while also stating that it is “conceivable” that history, and what affects human decision-making and reactions, are also “affected by the genetic identity of the people involved” (Kiaris, 2012: 11). Kiaris argues that genetic differences between Easterners and Westerners are driven by “specific environmental conditions that apparently drove the selection of specific alleles in certain populations, which in turn developed particular cultural attitudes and norms” (Kiaris, 2012: 91).


NotPoliticallyCorrect.Me

There are studies that try to show this...

They talk about certain allele patterns and try to link them to the expressions of individualism and collectivism.

In particular, it was the G allele that was associated with greater sensitivity to rejection. Additionally, this group also assessed the relationship of the A118G polymorphism to neural response during an actual episode of rejection in which the participant was excluded from an online ball-tossing game (Cyberball) with two supposed others. Consistent with the findings using the trait measure of sensitivity to rejection, individuals carrying the G allele also had greater levels of neural response to this rejection episode within multiple brain areas known to be involved in the processing of physical pain (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula). Thus, according to both self-report and neural data, genetic variation in the µ-opioid receptor is associated with sensitivity to social rejection.


Check out the chart available there that shows the proportion of populations with the G allele -- Sweden, Netherlands, Australia, Finland, Norway, USA, England, canada, Italy, etc. all have individualistic cultures overall, and have G allele frequencies below .2. However, S. Korea, Japan, Thaialnd, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, etc., have greater gene allele frequencies, at around .3 up to .45 .5.

They also talk about the prevalence of MAOA-polymorphism -- high allele frequencies of the MAOA polymorphism would indicate greater individualism, and low expression would be less. Less than 20% of Swedes have low expression MAOA alleles, while nearly 65% of Japanese & Chinese have Low Expression MAOA Alleles, which correlates quite perfectly with the individualism-collectivism divide.

n conclusion, there exists a robust relationship between the cultural construct individualism–collectivism and the prevalence of alleles at several polymorphisms with apparent psychological effects. As the knowledge base of the relationship between genetics and social cognition grows, there will be great refinement in our understanding of the relationship between psychological processes and genetic variation, including the variants discussed here.


NCBI

This is pretty cutting edge stuff -- I am not sure that we can say any of it is set in stone.

But the idea is not absurd. There's a scientific basis to the idea of us inheriting psychological traits. If we have enough people in the same, shared gene pool comprising an ethnic group that creates a culture that have a certain psychological inclination, then we will see the whole culture of the group be more reflective of these psychological characteristics.

If in every four-person Japanese family, it is likely that at least 2 and very often 3 members have low expression MAOA alleles, then we can imagine that nearly every Japanese family will be far more inclined to accommodate the more collectivist features of this psychological profile... while Swedes will have the opposite effect: in the four person family where only it is likely that one or no people are collectivist inclined, there would be expected to be more individualism.

It's really stunning if it pans out.
  • 1
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10

The link and quote has been posted. As well as li[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

What wat0n is trying to distract from: https://tw[…]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1773436787622[…]

PoFo would be a strange place for them to focus o[…]