0.1% of all people control 99% of the resources, are you willing to live in a world like this?

"
ScrotieMcB wrote:
"
deathflower wrote:
The democracy is a farce. The effective check on centralized power is the quality of your government not democracy. If you pick shitty government, you get shitty government. If you pick a good government you get a good one. The trick is knowing which is which. Democracy suck when all the decision makers suck.

People keep picking shitty government and don't trust them. Then try to weaken their government power so they can't do anything damaging. You ended up with an impotent government and they can't do shit.
An impotent government that can't go shit is quickly replaced by a tyrannical government that can and will, funded by corporatist interests.

I think we agree that democracy can be a farce. My thesis, however, is that the effectiveness of democracy is directly proportional to the awareness of its voters. In most cases, this awareness is abysmal; for example, in 2003 70% of surveyed Americans believed Saddam Hussein had a role in planning the attacks of Sept 11, 2001. This does, to a certain extent, show the gullibility of the general population, but I don't think that's the key issue; I think the key issue was that there was not competition with the Saddam-9/11 narrative, you didn't have experts getting views saying the story was bogus and forwarded by military-industrial complex sell-outs (which it certainly was).

What I'm saying is: I don't expect everyone to be an expert on any one issue... but for any one issue, I desire for the expert who has figured it out to get on a soapbox, communicate that idea, and have that idea gain popularity and following. Securing that possibility requires rigorous defense of freedom of speech and press against centralized interests that would stifle competition from good ideas.


Politicians ignore expert opinions on the matter. Experts know there is no WMD, there is report of this. Politicians voting to go to war, are taken in by the false narrative. In fact, It is reinforced and made worse by the facts. It is backfire effect, it demonstrated experimentally in psychological tests.

Well, morbo you use twisted logic same as you accuse me.

"Police state" you say, here is your police state.

The U.S. incarcerates more of its people than any country in the world. 1 of every 104 Americans is behind bars. Here’s one growth industry the U.S. can point to, for better or worse: the United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any country in the world. The U.S. makes up 5 percent of the world’s population but accounts for 25 percent of its prisoners.

I highly suspect it is very nice free labor force for someone with the rise of private prisons. And I don't want even to mention Patriot Act, oops I did.

I'm not saying everything was ideal in the socialist countries, yes there was power abuse, ridiculous Party chanting, restricted access to media and so on. But the people were living a LOT better. There was education, social care, medical care. Even in the west people were living better because they had an example.

And if you live in former Yugoslavia, you must know all this!
About my Borg idea, all right, let it not be AI, let it be New World Order, or Jesus Christ Savior Salvation Government or whatever. In practical terms centralized system is much more sustainable than decentralized one. More manageable. Even the capitalist structures tend to centralize. My AI government, it was just representing the requirement to be immune to corruption, nothing more. Don't take all so literally.

You talk about democracy, free will, free media. Where are they? Help me see them.

Last edited by poor_hobbit on Jan 14, 2017, 8:01:02 PM
Poor Hobbit, if you like Socialism so much, why not move to Cuba, or North Korea? Where is your big shining example of Socialism? I typically hear from people like you that "Nobody has ever done it right" - like you think you magically have the answer for all of societies and the world's problems. Grow up, and quit thinking like a naive teen.
Last edited by MrSmiley21 on Jan 14, 2017, 10:37:30 PM
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poor_hobbit wrote:
"Police state" you say, here is your police state.

The U.S. incarcerates more of its people than any country in the world. 1 of every 104 Americans is behind bars. Here’s one growth industry the U.S. can point to, for better or worse: the United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any country in the world. The U.S. makes up 5 percent of the world’s population but accounts for 25 percent of its prisoners.

The US has lots of problems with crime, but that's not what police state means. As you know in the SU & YU, we had militarized police, called "militsiya", which was basically "internal military" to keep people in check. Coupled with a very powerful internal intelligence services & secret police (KGB, Stasi, UDBA, etc...), which job was to spy on people, prevent political dissent, stop deffectors, etc...

I only enjoyed a fraction of my childhood in this paradise, but I still remember how the Yugoslav border was completely militarized. Not to prevent invasion, as was the official claim (who would want to invade failed socialists?), but to keep people from fleeing to the West, lol :))

Comparing this situation to US or western Europe civil police is ludicrous. EU countries dont have nearly as massive incarceration rates, as you claim for US, meaning the problem is not in democracy, but somewhere else specific to USA.

"
poor_hobbit wrote:
I'm not saying everything was ideal in the socialist countries, yes there was power abuse, ridiculous Party chanting, restricted access to media and so on. But the people were living a LOT better.

"Better" in what sense? All the socialist countries were much worse off economically and had worse freedoms & rights. I don't see what was better. People wanted to flee out, not come in, so...???

If you live in your own bubble of delusion, devoid of information, then you maybe think life couldn't be better. Most North Koreans will tell you that life in NK is great, couldn't be better, cause the Dear Leader takes care of everything. Life in the West is awful compared to NK, or so the state media says.

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poor_hobbit wrote:
There was education, social care, medical care.

All this stuff is and was available in western Europe, without having an oppresive regime.

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poor_hobbit wrote:
You talk about democracy, free will, free media. Where are they? Help me see them.

In the US and everywhere else, where there is a pluralistic choice in information sources and freedom of speech, expression, etc... There is no singular source of absoulte truth, only slightly biased versions of truth. But at least you can freely pick between a multitude of sources and make up your own mind.
When night falls
She cloaks the world
In impenetrable darkness
Last edited by morbo on Jan 15, 2017, 3:07:54 AM
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morbo wrote:

"Better" in what sense? All the socialist countries were much worse off economically and had worse freedoms & rights. I don't see what was better. People wanted to flee out, not come in, so...???

If you live in your own bubble of delusion, devoid of information, then you maybe think life couldn't be better. Most North Koreans will tell you that life in NK is great, couldn't be better, cause the Dear Leader takes care of everything. Life in the West is awful compared to NK, or so the state media says.



Communism never happened. That is also a farce. Under Communist ideologies factor of production are suppose to be owned by the people, except it is not. Human are corrupted. They twist and deform Communist ideologies to suit themselves. What you have is State Capitalism. Wealth owned by the government controlled by a small group of elites. Socialism is nothing more than regulated Capitalism.

Communism is the great social experiment. The people never got rid of their bourgeoisie. They just trade one for another.
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deathflower wrote:
Communism never happened.

And it will never happen, because the prerequisites for it are in direct conflict with human nature. Communism is pure fiction, that works with low level beings without individual conscience like insects, or maybe in a hypotetical planet inhabitated by robots, where every "unit" is exactly the same & everoyne gets the same software upgrade.

We know that, but various marxist dictatorships called themselves "communist", so we keep using this word.
When night falls
She cloaks the world
In impenetrable darkness
Last edited by morbo on Jan 15, 2017, 4:17:34 AM
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deathflower wrote:
Socialism is nothing more than regulated Capitalism.
"Regulated capitalism" is a contradiction in terms.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
"
deathflower wrote:

Communism never happened. That is also a farce. Under Communist ideologies factor of production are suppose to be owned by the people, except it is not. Human are corrupted. They twist and deform Communist ideologies to suit themselves. What you have is State Capitalism. Wealth owned by the government controlled by a small group of elites. Socialism is nothing more than regulated Capitalism.

Communism is the great social experiment. The people never got rid of their bourgeoisie. They just trade one for another.


No, Communism was/is very real. The Communism you're referring to in the above post is the leftist utopia that's never going to happen.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Communism dictates the government has absolute or near absolute power. The bigger and more powerful the government, the more corrupt it is by default. Because humans.

About the only way your Communism might work, is for the system to be controlled by a benevolent AI program. Who controls and manages the allocation of resources. And distributes them as efficiently as possible, with no bias or an axe to grind. But even then, such a thing would be vulnerable to hacking and exploits. Human desires and ambitions would need to be completely removed from the equation of government. Something like this would need to be tested on a small scale to see if it's even effective. But I'd be curious to see the results.
Last edited by MrSmiley21 on Jan 15, 2017, 10:28:43 AM
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MrSmiley21 wrote:


No, Communism was/is very real. The Communism you're referring to in the above post is the leftist utopia that's never going to happen.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Communism dictates the government has absolute or near absolute power. The bigger and more powerful the government, the more corrupt it is by default. Because humans.

About the only way your Communism might work, is for the system to be controlled by a benevolent AI program. Who controls and manages the allocation of resources. And distributes them as efficiently as possible, with no bias or an axe to grind. But even then, such a thing would be vulnerable to hacking and exploits. Human desires and ambitions would need to be completely removed from the equation of government. Something like this would need to be tested on a small scale to see if it's even effective. But I'd be curious to see the results.


What you describe is authoritarianism and dictatorship, not Communism. We are capitalism all along, we just got better at exploiting people and resources. Whether it is monarchy, dictatorship, democracy or republic, They are all capitalism. There is no alternative to capitalism, it doesn't exist. Communist revolutions have never yielded their intended utopias of equality.
Last edited by deathflower on Jan 15, 2017, 5:27:30 PM
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MrSmiley21 wrote:
About the only way your Communism might work, is for the system to be controlled by a benevolent AI program. Who controls and manages the allocation of resources. And distributes them as efficiently as possible, with no bias or an axe to grind.

Nah, that wouldn't work, because not even that sleazy scammer Marx would pay his heart surgeon the same salary as he's paying his garbage disposal guy.

The only way I see Communism work with humans is under these highly improbable conditions:

1.) Everything that is possible to discover in the physical universe, has been discovered. The reality of the universe is 100% known to everyone, there is nothing more to know or invent.

2.) Everything that is possible to produce in the physical universe, has been produced. The cost of producing an additional unit of X is extremely low, almost zero.

3.) Humans have probably uploaded their consciousness to some sort of matrix at this stage. There is no need to exist as physical bodies anymore. The cost of creating another human consciousness or keeping the existing ones active indefinitely, is negligible, close to zero.

There you have it - the perfect communist society, where there is nothing to aspire to, no individualism, nothing more to create... you just "sit there" and wait for the heat death of the universe.

However you look at it, communism fucking sucks. ;)
When night falls
She cloaks the world
In impenetrable darkness

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