Socialism is the ideal way to go. Change my Mind - Page 20 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15006926
Truth To Power wrote:No, because there is nothing arbitrary about it. The people of a community share laws, interests, history, culture, customs, language, etc. The notion that that is all just arbitrary is borderline autistic, maybe sociopathic.

You missed the point which is that "the public" is an aggregate of private individuals like a flock is a aggregate of sheep. The word "arbitrary" was the least significant of the words in my point. But thanks for proving that "the public" is indeed an arbitrary aggregate given that we don't all share the same interests, history, language etc. We are not clones.
#15006958
SolarCross wrote:You missed the point which is that "the public" is an aggregate of private individuals like a flock is a aggregate of sheep.

But it's not. The public constitutes a community with systematic characteristics, as I already explained. A flock of sheep are just whichever sheep happen to have been put together.
The word "arbitrary" was the least significant of the words in my point.

No, you were trying to get it to do your work for you:
But thanks for proving that "the public" is indeed an arbitrary aggregate given that we don't all share the same interests, history, language etc.

See?
We are not clones.

Having some things in common doesn't mean we have everything in common, just as human beings all being members of the same species doesn't mean we are all clones.
#15006970
@SolarCross,

Moslems and Indians are very right winged. Arranged marriages and forced marriages were common in all of Europe and even in the Americas up until the early 1800's. People nowadays divorce more, but many people still live with or deal with their ex's due to finances. There are people who divorce, but still live with their ex's because they can't afford their own home. Many people do not like marriage, they just don't talk about it because they need their partner, they don't want to look bad to society, and don't want to lose their jobs (many higher paying occupations that prefer university degrees fire people for divorcing due to socially looking "unstable" or "corrupt").

Many people are ruled by their families. Elders, disabled people, children, housewives who are relying on their husbands, university students, and people who lose their jobs. If one loses their job, and it takes months, or even years for them to find another, then who's going to pay their bills when they run out of their personal savings? Small company owners need their families to provide them financial stability and security. Low wage workers can't even afford their own places, so they stay with their parents, siblings, or working children (if they're old).
#15006998
Truth To Power wrote:But it's not. The public constitutes a community with systematic characteristics, as I already explained. A flock of sheep are just whichever sheep happen to have been put together.

A flock of sheep may not have chosen their common lot being chattel slaves but they do have a common lot and are therefore probably a lot closer to each other than some random member of public is with another. The public really isn't a community, it is just too big, diverse and estranged from each other. Your local church might be a community, your family might be a community, your local boozer might a community, your local sports club or arts & craft society but the public includes everyone including all the people you fear and hate and tens of millions of people you will never know and wouldn't want to. The public is the opposite of a community because a community has some common connection, some reason to associate. The public is far too big for that.

Anyway you are still missing that whatever a public is it is composed of private individuals.

--------

@SSDR
Well life can be hard and so having someone to help you through it or even just keep you company is a benefit. Blood relations make for easy company in general because of that common genetic and cultural heritage hence why one's own family just tend to make more reliable helpers (though not always). Family is an organic solution to the enduring problem of surviving this world.

Don't you want to have children some day? What kind of mother would you want to be to them if you did?
#15007165
SolarCross wrote:A flock of sheep may not have chosen their common lot being chattel slaves but they do have a common lot and are therefore probably a lot closer to each other than some random member of public is with another.

Wrong. We care about what other members of the public do even when it doesn't affect us. That is what morality is.
The public really isn't a community, it is just too big, diverse and estranged from each other.

Wrong. We all, even criminals, understand that we need our fellow members of the public even just to survive, let alone to thrive. Yes, even violent criminals hypocritically rely on public institutions for protection.
Your local church might be a community, your family might be a community,

Maybe.
your local boozer might a community,

Not really.
the public includes everyone including all the people you fear and hate and tens of millions of people you will never know and wouldn't want to. The public is the opposite of a community because a community has some common connection, some reason to associate.

So does the public. See above.
The public is far too big for that.

Wrong. We all have the same laws, government, public institutions, etc. We share the same infrastructure and public services. You are just pretending none of those facts of objective physical reality are true. But they are.
Anyway you are still missing that whatever a public is it is composed of private individuals.

I'm not missing it. It's just irrelevant, like the members of a family all being separate individuals. So what? You appear to be pushing Maggie Thatcher's absurd and dishonest claim that there is no such thing as society.
#15007263
Truth To Power wrote:Wrong. We care about what other members of the public do even when it doesn't affect us. That is what morality is.

There is no "we". A suicide bomber, a pedo, a jehovas witness and a bare knuckle boxing champion are all bits of the public but they have no common community or morality.

Truth To Power wrote:Wrong. We all, even criminals, understand that we need our fellow members of the public even just to survive, let alone to thrive. Yes, even violent criminals hypocritically rely on public institutions for protection.

No, most of us do have uses for some other people but no one needs everyone and some of those people are actively opposed or working against one's interests.

Truth To Power wrote:Wrong. We all have the same laws, government, public institutions, etc. We share the same infrastructure and public services. You are just pretending none of those facts of objective physical reality are true. But they are.

No, the "public" is a catch all term for an any person in aggregate and that includes: non-nationals and those of a different religion or creed. So that is people who actually don't have the same laws, government etc.

Truth To Power wrote:I'm not missing it. It's just irrelevant, like the members of a family all being separate individuals. So what? You appear to be pushing Maggie Thatcher's absurd and dishonest claim that there is no such thing as society.

It is relevant to incredulity that you have that private schools might be called public schools and that public companies will have private shareholders. The one is the aggregate of the other not the opposite ends of some mutually hostile dichotomy.
#15007852
SolarCross wrote:There is no "we".

Thus you disqualify yourself from rational discourse.
A suicide bomber, a pedo, a jehovas witness and a bare knuckle boxing champion are all bits of the public but they have no common community or morality.

Yes, actually, they do. They just don't have EVERYTHING in common, because they are individuals.

See how that works?
No, most of us do have uses for some other people but no one needs everyone

Your notion that society consists of an arbitrary aggregation of individuals, some of whom are "useful" to a particular individual and others not, shows a kindergarten-level comprehension of society. Society is structured around institutions and relationships, and individuals provide and receive benefits through their roles in those institutions and relationships.
and some of those people are actively opposed or working against one's interests.

A competitor in the market may work against one's interest, but the result of competition in the market is general benefit to all.

Again, your comment shows a kindergarten-level appreciation of how human beings behave in society, and why.
No, the "public" is a catch all term for an any person in aggregate

No, it is not. It refers to the people of a particular community.
and that includes: non-nationals and those of a different religion or creed.

Visitors are not members of the community, and those of different religions can be members of the same community, bound by the same laws, participating in the same institutions and relationships, etc.
So that is people who actually don't have the same laws, government etc.

Flat false. Everyone in the community is bound by its laws, government, etc.
It is relevant to incredulity that you have that private schools might be called public schools and that public companies will have private shareholders. The one is the aggregate of the other not the opposite ends of some mutually hostile dichotomy.

No, public and private are generally considered distinct spheres, if not opposites. In American English, "public" schools are schools funded by the community and open to all, while the privately owned, selective-admission schools that British usage incorrectly calls "public" are correctly called, "private." Companies whose shares are held by a large number of people would more accurately be called, "widely held" rather than, "public." There's no reason to be defensive about errors in language. It's been known for 500 years that indigenous Americans are not in fact Indians, but Columbus's error persists.
#15007899
@SolarCross,

"Well life can be hard and so having someone to help you through it or even just keep you company is a benefit. Blood relations make for easy company in general because of that common genetic and cultural heritage hence why one's own family just tend to make more reliable helpers (though not always). Family is an organic solution to the enduring problem of surviving this world.

Don't you want to have children some day? What kind of mother would you want to be to them if you did?
"

- One needs another to "help" them get through their situation because of their economics. If the economy is socialist, then no one needs to personally nor internally rely on another since the economics are not domestic. "Blood relations" there are many people who are nothing like their families, hence there are also people who have very different kinds of relatives that have very little in common with their other relatives. Family is organic only in a non socialist economy.

The purpose of having children is to reproduce, to ensure the survival of the human species. Family values are/were used to motivate people to reproduce so that they can be controlled, and they don't realize this because they lack real consciousness.
#15008018
Truth To Power wrote:Thus you disqualify yourself from rational discourse.

I am doing no such thing and clearly you care nothing for "rational discourse".

Truth To Power wrote:Yes, actually, they do. They just don't have EVERYTHING in common, because they are individuals.

See how that works?

There is no common allegiance either. If you put all four in a room together they'd probably murder each other.

Truth To Power wrote:Your notion that society consists of an arbitrary aggregation of individuals, some of whom are "useful" to a particular individual and others not, shows a kindergarten-level comprehension of society. Society is structured around institutions and relationships, and individuals provide and receive benefits through their roles in those institutions and relationships.

The more individuals you aggregate into your abstract "society" the more of an abstraction it becomes. Regardless I was talking about the concept of the "public" which is NOT a simple synonym of "society" or "community". Your crude intellect isn't even on a "kindergarten-level" if you can't grasp that nuance.

Truth To Power wrote:A competitor in the market may work against one's interest, but the result of competition in the market is general benefit to all.

Sometimes, sometimes not. Regardless the motives matter.

Truth To Power wrote:Again, your comment shows a kindergarten-level appreciation of how human beings behave in society, and why.

No, it is not. It refers to the people of a particular community.

Visitors are not members of the community, and those of different religions can be members of the same community, bound by the same laws, participating in the same institutions and relationships, etc.

public - webster definition
As noun it means:
"the people as a whole". It doesn't in fact necessarily exclude non-nationals. The word "citizenry" is more explicitly centered on a nationalist criteria for who is in and who is out. Perhaps the Romans who originally coined the term used it in a nationalist way but now the word is not used in English that way necessarily.

Truth To Power wrote:Flat false. Everyone in the community is bound by its laws, government, etc.

There is no community on that scale except as a literary conceit, a fiction. In general the laws people are bound by come from different sources and do not apply equally. Muslims can get a limited kind of sharia for example in the UK. Every contract is a unique law in its own right and there are billions of them. There are local by-laws which only apply on a provincial level. Arguably every house and company has its own "house rules" and enforcement procedures.

Truth To Power wrote:No, public and private are generally considered distinct spheres, if not opposites. In American English, "public" schools are schools funded by the community and open to all, while the privately owned, selective-admission schools that British usage incorrectly calls "public" are correctly called, "private." Companies whose shares are held by a large number of people would more accurately be called, "widely held" rather than, "public." There's no reason to be defensive about errors in language. It's been known for 500 years that indigenous Americans are not in fact Indians, but Columbus's error persists.

We are speaking in English! The correct definition of "public" in English is how the English native speaker uses it. There can be no error by definition. You are using the word incorrectly if you are using it differently to the English native speaker (grudgingly I'll allow Americans honourary English speaker status as well as the British English.)

Still you are missing that "private" and "public" are different concepts but the one is composed of the other. If there are no private individuals then neither would there be a public because the public is composed of private individuals in aggregate.

Like it or not you are both a private person and a member of the public.

--------

@SSDR
Well we don't live in a "socialist economy" and probably never will. There is no sense expecting to operate in a context which does not exist and probably never will.

I asked a personal question regarding what you personally want to do reproductively but you gave a very impersonal answer. So I ask again "Don't you want to have children some day? What kind of mother would you want to be to them if you did?".
#15008093
SolarCross wrote:I am doing no such thing and clearly you care nothing for "rational discourse".

Wrong again. When you say there is no such thing as "we," you are making the same kind of disingenuous and absurd claim as Maggie Thatcher when she said there is no such thing as society. There self-evidently and indisputably IS such a thing as "we,", just as there self-evidently and indisputably is such a thing as society.
There is no common allegiance either.

Yes, of course there is, to the community they choose to remain members of.
If you put all four in a room together they'd probably murder each other.

What nonsense. Why would they?
The more individuals you aggregate into your abstract "society" the more of an abstraction it becomes.

It's not an abstraction. It's just complex -- maybe too complex for some people to understand.
Regardless I was talking about the concept of the "public" which is NOT a simple synonym of "society" or "community".

True, the public consists of the people that make up the community. They are one factor that goes into making a society or community. Other factors are common interests, laws, government, etc., as already explained so very patiently.
Your crude intellect isn't even on a "kindergarten-level" if you can't grasp that nuance.

<yawn> I just explained the nuance, which you were not up to.
public - webster definition
As noun it means:
"the people as a whole". It doesn't in fact necessarily exclude non-nationals.

It excludes visitors, anyway, which is what I said, because it is "THE people," not just "people." Are you not up to understanding that nuance, either?
The word "citizenry" is more explicitly centered on a nationalist criteria for who is in and who is out. Perhaps the Romans who originally coined the term used it in a nationalist way but now the word is not used in English that way necessarily.

Of course not necessarily. The word has different senses, as any good dictionary will confirm. But unless you are interested in pushing an equivocation fallacy -- always a handy option when you can't answer facts and logic -- those other senses are irrelevant to the point.
There is no community on that scale except as a literary conceit, a fiction.

GARBAGE.
In general the laws people are bound by come from different sources and do not apply equally.

Irrelevant. They are still part of the social structure.
Muslims can get a limited kind of sharia for example in the UK.

Irrelevant. That's their choice, and they are still bound by British law.
Every contract is a unique law in its own right and there are billions of them.

Wrong. Contracts are not laws. You know better than that.
There are local by-laws which only apply on a provincial level.

So there are levels of community, from local to national. So what?
Arguably every house and company has its own "house rules" and enforcement procedures.

So what?
We are speaking in English! The correct definition of "public" in English is how the English native speaker uses it. There can be no error by definition.

Nonsense. People use words incorrectly all the time. Sometimes these errors become accepted usage, but they are still errors. Indigenous Americans are not Indians no matter how many people call them Indians.

Anyway, as neither of us is defending socialism, we seem to be OT.
#15009643
@SolarCross,

"Well we don't live in a "socialist economy" and probably never will. There is no sense expecting to operate in a context which does not exist and probably never will.

I asked a personal question regarding what you personally want to do reproductively but you gave a very impersonal answer. So I ask again "Don't you want to have children some day? What kind of mother would you want to be to them if you did?".
"

A socialist economy can exist since there is no fixed human nature. And there is proof of this because how societies are like nowadays are not like how they were 60, 100, or 200 years ago. Optimism ruled Western Europe from the beginnings of modern imperialism (1500's) to the Great War (1914-1918). Pessimism liberated society after up until the Second World War. People view women differently now than they did 200 years ago, or even as late as 50 years ago! (in Southern Italy, where the social norm was to marry one's rapist). So you believing that a socialist economy "never will" exist is not proven.

A parent must let their children be free and independent as early as possible, to full fill their individual destinies. Parents should raise their children to be self motivated, helpful to others in need, and not value anything. And no child should be spoiled since that corrupts them. Everything else is either internal, or cultural, which has little to do with economic socialism (unless if it has capitalist roots, such as some elements of American culture).
#15011671
SSDR wrote:[usermention=36101] Parents should raise their children to be self motivated, helpful to others in need, and not value anything.


Yeah, that's not fucked up at all...
#15011956
SSDR wrote:You want people to value you?


We're not talking about me. We're talking about you.

I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you're of that generation in which you had everything you wanted handed to you and had to work for nothing.

You probably got a trophy when your softball team came in last, too...
#15011958
BigSteve wrote:We're not talking about me. We're talking about you.

I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you're of that generation in which you had everything you wanted handed to you and had to work for nothing.

You probably got a trophy when your softball team came in last, too...


Your right wing shunning tactics are not going to work. Your tactics were used to go against people who went against your ideology. People did this to you, and you feel for it. So you are doing this to others who do not falsely see things like you, to people like me.

No one needs a "trophy" to motivate them to harvest crops.
#15011960
SSDR wrote:Your right wing shunning tactics are not going to work. Your tactics were used to go against people who went against your ideology. People did this to you, and you feel for it. So you are doing this to others who do not falsely see things like you, to people like me.

No one needs a "trophy" to motivate them to harvest crops.


Why would you harvest crops?
#15011962
BigSteve wrote:Why would you harvest crops?


Well, farmers are needed to harvest crops so that food can be extracted for society to eat.

I personally don't harvest crops since I am not a farmer. But I speak for those who do harvest crops, for all of society to benefit.

A doctor doesn't need a "trophy" to save one's life.
#15011964
SSDR wrote:Well, farmers are needed to harvest crops so that food can be extracted for society to eat.


But why? Why should the farmer be worried about society or, perhaps more accurately, why should society rely on the farmer?

I personally don't harvest crops since I am not a farmer. But I speak for those who do harvest crops, for all of society to benefit.


Which farmers? Farmers who grow cauliflower get no love from me. I hate that. A cattle farmer, on the other hand? I love a good steak. In fact, I'm heading out to get one now.

Ciao...
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