Technocracy vs. Communism - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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The solving of mankind’s problems and abolition of government via technological solutions alone.

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#15181290
We should all format a technocracy that way all Linux users of the world can unite and be free. And free their chains from the tyranny of Microsoft and it's mind control and licensing agreements over hardware architecture. Computer professionals and Linux users of the world unite under technocracy!
#15181311
Kolzene wrote:
No, it just means that you do not understand what he means. You see, in Technocracy we make a distinction between objective (technical) and subjective (personal) decisions. He is saying that you need to take out the subjective elements from technical/objective decisions, like you were saying about regarding a new piece of machinery. Once that is done, people will have the maximum amount of choice regarding personal matters, such as what they would like to eat, where they would like to live, what to wear, how to spend their time, etc. So really your own example regarding color is exactly what Scott and Technocracy are talking about.



So it's *not* going to be baby-blue -- ?


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#15181315
A technocracy would just be corporate fascism with the likes of Bezos, Musk, Gates, etc. at the helm of this authoritarian hellscape.
#15181316
@Rancid

If the Linux users revolt it might not be this way given Linux is open source and is not corporate owned. Instead, Chairman Linus Torvalds would be in charge of our stateless, classless society of tech nerds.
#15181317
Politics_Observer wrote:@Rancid

If the Linux users revolt it might not be this way given Linux is open source and is not corporate owned.


The only reason Linux has proliferated so much is because of corporate support though.
#15181318
Chairman Linus Torvalds will ensure the end of corporate tyranny and control. Ubuntu and Red Hat are just one out a gazillion Linux distributions. :D We will all be free of tyranny under comrade Chairman Torvalds :lol: He will shake his little finger and there will be no more corporate owned operating systems. They will all be open source.
#15181320
Politics_Observer wrote:Chairman Linus Torvalds will ensure the end of corporate tyranny and control. Ubuntu and Red Hat are just one out a gazillion Linux distributions. :D We will all be free of tyranny under comrade Chairman Torvalds :lol: He will shake his little finger and there will be no more corporate owned operating systems. They will all be open source.


I know you are joking, but you know Linus is a real dick right?

Just take a look at his comments on the LKML.

Supposedly he took a break to get some sensitivity training or something. Not sure if he has toned it down now. This was just like 2 years ago, so there's plenty of history of him being a general dick to people.

I understand that he has high standards for code, that's fine, but that doesn't justify being an ass.
#15181324
@Rancid

Honestly, I had no idea Linus Torvalds was a dick. Piss on him if he is. I just enjoy Linux computing. Yes, obviously I was joking but you also have a legitimate point that some of the most used operating systems out there that are constantly staying reliably patched up are corporate supported and/or owned (Ubuntu and Red Hat). So, you know, you have to have some capitalism in there to make things efficient and economically viable. There is a little bit of "me" in everybody. Aside from that, I found this article from the Seattle Weekly amusing:

Curtis Cartier of Seattle Weekly wrote:Comrade Linus Torvalds.Dealing with Microsoft is “like kicking a puppy,” declares Jim Zemlin to Network World on Monday. Zemlin, the right-hand-man to Finnish radical and hacker turned Portland software mogul Linus Torvalds says that Linux-inspired technology has overpowered Microsoft’s grip on the market in every category they deal in. But if Zemlin is right–and it’s certainly debatable that he is–then Linux’s victory is less for its particular products than for the idea that open-sourced communism works as a technology business model.

You see, Linux doesn’t operate like Microsoft. In fact, Linux doesn’t operate like any American big business. Then again, Finland, the socialist country where Torvalds lives, doesn’t operate like America either.When Torvalds created the original code or “kernel” of Linux, his idea was that others could use it to create their own software applications. This isn’t so unusual, but Torvalds didn’t charge anything to use the kernel (gasp!), instead offering a kind of licensing arrangement called a General Public License, where the source code was released to the public for free while the original coder–him–retained the trademark.Then, like now, people who work on the code are rewarded for the time they invest in the products that sell on a kind of share-and-share-alike basis, and the whole thing spins round in a big commie circle.

Comrade Jim ZemlinBut at the same time, red-blooded capitalistic companies like Red Hat and Novell offer classic subscription services that update Linux software and function as any typical software company found in the States.This arrangement has allowed Linux software to seep into countless areas of the tech world, from servers to smartphones to laptops and televisions, all to the great dismay of Microsoft and other tech giants who’ve consistently referred to Linux as “communism” and a threat to entrepreneurship–namely theirs.So when Zemlin says “I think we just don’t care that much [about Microsoft] anymore,” and holds Microsoft’s (however imaginary) bloody head high and declares victory, he doesn’t do so for Linux but for “The Party” of Linux and all its comrades. The major problem for Microsoft and for other traditional tech firms is that all those pinko “comrades” they detest are doing pretty well for themselves. Follow The Daily Weekly on Facebook and Twitter.


https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/comr ... lares-jim/
#15181411
Rancid wrote:A technocracy would just be corporate fascism with the likes of Bezos, Musk, Gates, etc. at the helm of this authoritarian hellscape.

That is not the definition of Technocracy that we are using on this forum. Please read the Mini FAQ.
#15181412
Kolzene wrote:That is not the definition of Technocracy that we are using on this forum. Please read the Mini FAQ.


Technocracy is not natural and will need a forceful hand to implement. I'm sure it will work out to an authoritarian hellscape one way or another.
#15181416
Kolzene wrote:
No, it just means that you do not understand what he means. You see, in Technocracy we make a distinction between objective (technical) and subjective (personal) decisions. He is saying that you need to take out the subjective elements from technical/objective decisions, like you were saying about regarding a new piece of machinery. Once that is done, people will have the maximum amount of choice regarding personal matters, such as what they would like to eat, where they would like to live, what to wear, how to spend their time, etc. So really your own example regarding color is exactly what Scott and Technocracy are talking about.



Okay, more seriously, my critique of technocracy, from past discussions at RevLeft, is that it's basically *Stalinism*, a bureaucratic elite. What's to guarantee that this technical bureaucratic elite will be in any way *accountable* to the people it's supposedly administrating-over -- ?
#15181421
ckaihatsu wrote:Okay, more seriously, my critique of technocracy, from past discussions at RevLeft, is that it's basically *Stalinism*, a bureaucratic elite. What's to guarantee that this technical bureaucratic elite will be in any way *accountable* to the people it's supposedly administrating-over -- ?


Indeed.

They will create an authoritarian hellhole.

All of these economic systems simply change who is in charge or what kind of person is in charge. IN the end, we all get fucked.
#15181422
Rancid wrote:
Indeed.

They will create an authoritarian hellhole.

All of these economic systems simply change who is in charge or what kind of person is in charge. IN the end, we all get fucked.



Well, with all due respect, I myself am not prone to such dramatics.

Stalinism, being *nationalization* / de-privatization, would be an incremental *improvement* over 'Wall Street', or the privatization and securitization of anything of value.

Here's the (fairly) current CEO-to-worker pay ratio:



An April 2013 study by Bloomberg finds that large public company CEOs were paid an average of 204 times the compensation of rank-and-file workers in their industries.



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



Under the USSR's Stalinism the bureaucrat-to-worker ratio was *far less* -- somewhere in the single digits or teens -- as I recall. Sorry I don't have the data offhand.


Political Spectrum, Simplified

Spoiler: show
Image
#15181424
ckaihatsu wrote:Stalinism, being *nationalization* / de-privatization, would be an incremental *improvement* over 'Wall Street',


Why would the Holodomor be an improvement on Wall Street?

I am not against Communism but as of yet you haven't explained why something you advocate is immune to the same problems that someone else advocates when the situation of power remains the same. Checks and balances. The only system that stands a chance of preventing corruption is democracy. And even then we see corruption. But then you can vote out the corruption and bring someone else in which means at least you have accountability.
#15181430
B0ycey wrote:
Why would the Holodomor be an improvement on Wall Street?

I am not against Communism but as of yet you haven't explained why something you advocate is immune to the same problems that someone else advocates when the situation of power remains the same. Checks and balances. The only system that stands a chance of preventing corruption is democracy. And even then we see corruption. But then you can vote out the corruption and bring someone else in which means at least you have accountability.



Well, please note that I'm not *advocating* Stalinism -- I'm saying that *empirically* it would be better than private property. Of course I'm not arguing for *famine*, either -- historcally we have to look at the *reasons* for Holodomor:



The Holodomor "was a foreseeable byproduct of the collectivization campaign that Stalin forcibly imposed, but not an intentional murder. He needed the peasants to produce more grain, and to export the grain to buy the industrial machinery for the industrialization. Peasant output and peasant production was critical for Stalin’s industrialization."[39]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor ... e_question
#15181434
ckaihatsu wrote:Well, please note that I'm not *advocating* Stalinism -- I'm saying that *empirically* it would be better than private property. Of course I'm not arguing for *famine*, either -- historcally we have to look at the *reasons* for Holodomor:


Well you have only just mentioned private property although whatever the reasons for Holodomor, what is certain is that actions by Stalin whether intentional or not caused it the same way actions on Wall Street caused the financial crash. Different systems, devastating actions. But both a result of lack of legislation or in Stalins case accountability. But even if we both agree that Communism is the most ideal system we could ever come up with, due to the nature of it being stateless and as such without a social contract, what would prevent warlords regaining lost states anyway. That is the one question you keep evading. Please don't respond with ideals. Respond with events that prove that corruption isn't possible in a Communist state. Although that maybe difficult due to human nature but I am sure you can give it a go.
#15181436
B0ycey wrote:
Well you have only just mentioned private property although whatever the reasons for Holodomor, what is certain is that actions by Stalin whether intentional or not caused it the same way actions on Wall Street caused the financial crash. Different systems, devastating actions. But both a result of lack of legislation or in Stalins case accountability. But even if we both agree that Communism is the most ideal system we could ever come up with, due to the nature of it being stateless and as such without a social contract, what would prevent warlords regaining lost states anyway. That is the one question you keep evading. Please don't respond with ideals. Respond with events that prove that corruption isn't possible in a Communist state. Although that maybe difficult due to human nature but I am sure you can give it a go.



---


B0ycey wrote:
stateless


B0ycey wrote:
Communist state



So which of these would you like me to address -- communism, or historical Stalinism?

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