Capitalism doesn't and IS NOT working, it's destructive and creatives poor social incentives

a reply to: peck420

see my post above i was in the middle of edits

in fact

most major innovations were not made to make money but to better humanity or make the inventors life easier

.....seems to be a common trait among people that you know.....actually have skills and ideas worth offering

originally posted by: sirhumperdink
because computers cant exist in socialist countries amirite?

They might have gotten around to inventing them ... eventually. But the fact is it came from the free market capitalist society and the massive leaps in technology also come from the capitalist societies because MONEY and a FREE MARKET are the driving forces that make people strive forward. Socialism or Marxism .... nope. (Otherwise, if they were so great, the computers and technology would have been coming out of them instead .... but nope)

originally posted by: sirhumperdink
a reply to: peck420

see my post above i was in the middle of edits

Your edits are inconsequential. The invention of the modern computer was driven by capitalist money. Not one of the persons that was involved would have been involved if somebody had not been paying.

in fact

most major innovations were not made to make money but to better humanity or make the inventors life easier

.....seems to be a common trait among people that you know.....actually have skills and ideas worth offering

Feel free to point out where I stated that invention was done for money. I simply pointed out that inventions get to the marketplace significantly faster via capitalism due to the profit driven nature of capitalism.

That being said, what is an invention if it is not in the market? Absolutely nothing.

a reply to: FlyersFan

again
the computer was not invented by one person and many of the contributors did not get wealthy or consider it a driving factor
your ignorance is showing

again if what you are saying is true windows operating systems would be better than linux operating systems.... virtually nobody will tell you thats true though
instead you see linux ditros as the most stable and useful operating systems you can find (oh my god! and without money as a driving factor)

again i see this argument that without money progress would halt and there would be no motivation to innovate....... but its almost always coming from people who do not innovate or have much to offer in the first place
so tell me flyers fan what major contributions have you made to society? i mean that money must motivate you right?

how about math? discoveries in math rarely come about as a result of monetary incentive yet its the basis of our entire world (whats a computer to do if it cant compute )

originally posted by: ExPostFacto
a reply to: Amagnon

I think your social model would work better within the confines of a co-op group, who provides for each other. Like a housing association might set its own rules, when you buy a house, this is essentially what you are referring to. To apply your model to society as a whole would fragment society, providing for disputes amongst neighbors and unclear laws when travelling around and interacting with members of another group. So you need a common law applicable to all groups, and some way to enforce it. However, your ideas could be applied to small groups which self organize for some purpose, for their collective survival.

All laws are universal - I think because I mentioned House rules you got confused there. A House is like an extended family and can have its own rules, and even treat them as laws - but they only apply to members of that House. For example they might be religious and wear a funny hat, or children might have a curfew, or have to paint their houses red or some such nonsense - but they cannot conflict with the universal laws.

Additionally - being a member of any House is purely voluntary - nobody can be prevented from leaving.

Also - you seem to think this is some kind of 'help people out' deal - no, this is purely based on self interest, self sufficiency and self reliance. The responsibilities of sovereigns are to maintain, enforce and adjudicate the law - instead of leaving it to some group that will oppress people, the people do it themselves.

I would suggest that juries need to be formed from at least three houses, especially when there is a dispute between members of two houses - those houses can be represented by 6 jurors each (for example), and an additional 6 drawn from anywhere - or from some House both parties agree to (for 18 jurors, or 4 from each to make 12).

My political system places all law making, enforcement, adjudication in the hands of the people. External parties who damage property would be dealt with the same way - the court sits and makes a judgement - even in the case of a bordering nation attacking. The court decides who actually did the harm, and what the response should be - so this would probably target politicians and media in the external group, and perhaps some military commanders - but would not necessarily be aimed at the external groups soldiers.

This is not for small groups - I believe this model would be the best model for the entire world. However to implement it requires a particular culture - of self reliance, and love of freedom and liberty and willingness to take personal responsibility for ensuring it. The culture needs to come first, and be supported by ceremony, myth, tradition and symbols - it cant be implemented where people are expecting someone else to come and save them all the time - people who dont save, dont plan for the future, wont carry a gun or aren't prepared to use it.

originally posted by: sirhumperdink
again
the computer was not invented by one person and many of the contributors did not get wealthy or consider it a driving factor

They may not have been profit driven, but those that provided the means for them to survive...were.

again if what you are saying is true windows operating systems would be better than linux operating systems.... virtually nobody will tell you thats true though
instead you see linux ditros as the most stable and useful operating systems you can find (oh my god! and without money as a driving factor)

Ironic. If it wasn't for AT&T's commercialization of Unix (triggering the Unix Wars), Unix (and her progeny) would not exist outside of academia.

again i see this argument that without money progress would halt and there would be no motivation to innovate....... but its almost always coming from people who do not innovate or have much to offer in the first place
so tell me flyers fan what major contributions have you made to society? i mean that money must motivate you right?

Money is necessary in any economic system. We have achieved a level of population that makes the traditional barter system...prohibitive. It is a tool, not a system.

how about math? discoveries in math rarely come about as a result of monetary incentive yet its the basis of our entire world (whats a computer to do if it cant compute

)

Discoveries, of any kind, rarely come out of subsistence based societies. Capitalism is what took us out of that.

a reply to: Amagnon

....so basically a system of clans or tribes with an overarching legal system
or like......cities or something

a reply to: peck420

so basically it needs capitalism to survive because otherwise exploitative capitalist practices would not allow it to compete.......
kind of my point there

if it didnt have to compete in a capitalist framework it would not need capitalism


essentially we need capitalism because the general populace is still too god damn stupid to act in their own best interest and would not support long term projects or general infrastructure..... i dont see how thats ever going to change if they continue to live in a system that treats them like irresponsible children who need to be bribed to act on their own behalf

originally posted by: sirhumperdink
essentially we need capitalism because the general populace is still too god damn stupid to act in their own best interest and would not support long term projects or general infrastructure..... i dont see how thats ever going to change if they continue to live in a system that treats them like irresponsible children

We need capitalism because it is the most efficient way to provide basic necessities to the largest number of persons. That provision is what allows us to do other things.

We will continue to need capitalism until we have resource exclusive, instantaneous, personal manufacturing.

Or until a better economic paradigm presents itself.

It doesn't matter what government system we use because, ultimately, it's physics that will win. Physics, as in the forces and behaviors of those forces within this matrix we call reality. Humans can only abide by these forces and their behavior. They may try to resist them, but just as debris will get carried with the flood water, so will humans be carried by these forces.

The poster above me said it right. We're idealogy. Capitalism or communism or whichever path a person follows. Reality will do what reality does.

Throw all idealogies into a pile and that's reality. Society and individual. War and peace. Raging fires and chilling cold. Black holes and vacuum. Everything it appears has its reverse. Its ugly twin. All of it at war, fighting to persist.

I don't think this universe stops us from living forever, it just makes it hard. It puts a price tag on it. It creates its opposite: nothingness. And from this nothingness there will never come anything. Forever.

a reply to: Xtrozero

Capitalism, is not being allowed to follow its natural tendencies. Part of the reason why it cannot, is because we use a debt based fractional reserve currency.

Set currency at a magic number. A hard limit on total "dollars" in currency. No more ever, no less. What would happen?

Economies work best, when the currency is balanced. A balance where enough currency is available for everyone to promote and participate in commerce, but not enough to make greed beneficial.

When banks inflate and print away, your wealth is stripped away. Guess where it went?

This history of private banking has all details you need. Not just here. To back to the 1600s.

From the recent Through The Wormhole episode with Morgan Freeman called "Is Reality Real ?"

For much of his life, scientist and philosopher Jim Baggott has been haunted by a simple question what is reality ?

Baggot: All reality is a fantasy created in our own heads.
We are locked in the prison of our own minds, and as a consequence, we have to create for ourselves an understanding of what reality is like on the basis of what we can absorb, what we can learn, what we can see.
So when we see with our eyes, what we perceive, of course, is not reality as such.
Our brains are, after all, just clumps of tissue weighing about 3½ pounds, with a consistency of cold porridge.
It's only when we interpret the electrical signals generated by our brain in our conscious mind do we create our individual reality.
That begs the question what happens when those electrical signals are shut off ? Well, I'm about to find out.
Freeman: Jim's going to have his hearing and vision blocked out for 15 minutes.
This simple form of sensory deprivation sends him into an alternate reality.
He loses track of time and experiences vivid hallucinations.
In the absence of sensory input, Jim's world-making machinery manufactures a reality with no connection to the world outside his body.
Baggott: Deprived of two of my most important senses, what happens is the brain scrambles for inputs from other senses.
So you become very conscious of the taste in your mouth and the hardness of this bed that I'm lying on.
I began to drift into some dreamlike states.
But then I became aware that me eyes are, in fact, wide open, and I'm fully awake and conscious.
Freeman: When your senses are shut off, your brain makes up its own version of reality.
But according to Jim, we all live in a false reality, a hyper reality created by society, filled with illusions that have become more real to us than the physical world around us.
We are all part of a community of minds, a world created by billions of brains working in concert over thousands of years.
The modern consumer society is the latest twist our mass mind has evolved to advance the species.
Money lies at the heart of this society.
But in many ways, it is the most hyper real of all of our creations.
Baggott: I have here a $50 bill and a 50£ note.
Current currency-conversion rates tells us that the pound is about 1½ times greater in value than the dollar.
and these little pieces of paper hold such a spell over our lives.
They tell us whether almost who is gonna live, who is gonna die.
But, really, value is something that's part of the hyper reality that we've created, and I don't know what the real value of a piece of paper made of three parts cotton fiber and one part linen really is, but I can tell you it's a lot less than $50 or 50£.
Freeman: Money would be valueless if we didn't all believe in it.
Our shared reality is an illusion we have to struggle to maintain.
And if we fail to strictly observe its rules, reality can crumble.
Baggott: Once these structures are out there, as it were, they develop, you know, laws of their own.
They develop a life of their own almost.
and that misinterpreting those rules and distorting those rules and changing those rules we do that at our peril.
Freeman: There is perhaps no greater example than the recent near collapse of the global financial system.
Baggott: The global banking crisis of 2008 resulted from bankers playing with the rules of the game.
and as a consequence, the value of money, literally overnight, was destroyed.
Freeman: For a brief moment, people became conscious that money is essentially an illusion.
But if we stop believing in the global monetary system, society could collapse.
So we choose to keep on believing.
Civilization was brought almost to its knees.
But the fact that civilization didn't disappear perhaps tells us that hyper reality, despite the fact that it exists only in our minds, is still too tough to kill.
Freeman: Why is it so easy for us to live in a fantasy world ? What is it about being human that compels us to create a hyper reality? Is it social pressure ? Or is it born into us?

originally posted by: sirhumperdink

you mean our entire futures?
you got to ride the gravy train for decades and now your complaining when the broken system you supported finally crumbles?
good job there....... you just screwed all of us over so you could live beyond your means and pillage the rest of the world by forcing upon them an unwanted reserve currency

What gravy train? Do you mean the 30 years of busting my butt to finally reach a level of comfort as the gravy train?

for the record i dont have an iphone or any smart phone for that matter

Seems you got a computer...

I had crap when I was in the 20s, and hardly anything but debt in my 30s. So boo hoo

Nothing has changed, it was hard getting a job back then and making a living and it is hard today. You can either work hard and get ahead or just let everything roll over you until one day you are 45 and dead broke.

but lol young people are just lazy ignorant tech addicts

It is obvious they want it all now...

You been lied to by your schools...go to college and walk into a 100k job...ya right...sorry so many of you bought that line, but the real world is different.


So when I was in my 20s, I had a crappy apt with a roommate, nasty old couch and brick and plywood furniture, had an old car and I was able to live.

(or maybe we see what youve done and are perfectly willing to let you sleep in the bed you made so we can fix it when youre gone)

WTF you have hardly started and throwing in the towel already, to reset the game...lol Spoiled....

You guys are going to fix it... good luck

a reply to: Xtrozero

2 billion people on the planet in the late 30s
less than 100 years later there are over 7 billion and a level of technology and efficiency that would have been absolutely unimaginable
the world you grew up in is very....very...different than the world your children (if you have any) are growing up in
you call it throwing in the towel..... we call it not investing in a losing proposition
once you dinosaurs are gone and your out modded system of economics with it we will build anew
you hear that ticking?....... thats your era and all the bs that came with it slowly fading into obscurity

you think about that

(and lol if computers were even around when you were in your 20s they wuold have cost tens of thousands of dollars not adjusted for inflation....... you can get a computer that allows you to post online today for $35..... but yeah you keep talking about how we just want more more more and use technology as the basis of your argument)

im sure your grandparents didnt have cars so maybe i should use the same argument you are except replace computers or phones with cars..... or lightbulbs....... or a fridge....... or indoor plumbing

originally posted by: sirhumperdink
a reply to: Xtrozero

2 billion people on the planet in the late 30s
less than 100 years later there are over 7 billion and a level of technology and efficiency that would have been absolutely unimaginable
the world you grew up in is very....very...different than the world your children (if you have any) are growing up in
you call it throwing in the towel..... we call it not investing in a losing proposition
once you dinosaurs are gone and your out modded system of economics with it we will build anew
you hear that ticking?....... thats your era and all the bs that came with it slowly fading into obscurity

you think about that

(and lol if computers were even around when you were in your 20s they wuold have cost tens of thousands of dollars not adjusted for inflation....... you can get a computer that allows you to post online today for $35..... but yeah you keep talking about how we just want more more more and use technology as the basis of your argument)

im sure your grandparents didnt have cars so maybe i should use the same argument you are except replace computers or phones with cars..... or lightbulbs....... or a fridge....... or indoor plumbing

I'm not that old, mid 50s got 2 teenagers too. You can live cheap but most do not your age. They then bitch that life is unfair that they do not make enough to feed their habits.

If you are young you should be working on skills and education, it takes time and no matter what the future holds there is no magic to help those who lack in either.

a reply to: onequestion

America is a totalitarian government engaged in a cross between neo-nazism and neo-fascism. The Neo Nazism comes into play when we look at the fact that laws are now being created to make people criminals against government dictatorship. This is the only justification for more armed militarized police and surveillance. Neo Fascism comes into play with the influence of corporations on said policy.

At this point, it would take more than a Civil War (which the people now could not win with the tech being what it is) to change things. We need a RESET button and hopefully remember what NOT to do next go round.

American reminds me of Brave New World right now. With NASA revealing essentially they got warp drive and can get the hell outta dodge, you have to wonder what is going to come down the pipe now.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
I live a great life due to capitalism, why would I want to change that?

2nd

Because you are human and have empathy for others and realize a system that encourages slavery for gain isn't humane.

a reply to: Xtrozero

adjusted for inflation AND cost of living
minimum wage in the mid to late 60s would be equivalent to around $20/hr today
was labor somehow worth more back then..... or are people today getting screwed harder than ever before and then being told they should be grateful for the opportunity?
inflation has gone up
cost of living has absolutely skyrocketed
and minimum wage has for the most part remained stagnant

the young should lobby for a higher wage as the jobs they are doing used to in effect pay a higher wage than they currently do

(i am working on skills and education im eventually going to be an electrical engineer .....doesnt change the fact im getting screwed right now though does it?....... and from what i can see ill be getting screwed then as well)

you cant have an $8/hr minimum wage in an area where the average rent on a small one bedroom apartment is well over $1200/month (this is certainly the case where i live)
that barely even covers rent assuming thats a full time job

my parents worked minimum wage during college (living in the same area) and that managed to pay tuition and living expenses..... you cant even come remotely close to doing that anymore


again the reality of the world you grew up in when you were a teenager almost 4 decades ago and the reality today.....are galaxies apart

Everything is random and occurs by chance, some people who are more aware of their surroundings and watch simply take advantage (capitalize) and benefit from the wants, needs and fears of others by providing goods and services to fulfill those needs and quell those fears.

In the end it really is "much ado about nothing" any way one may look at it if the source of those goods and services is destroyed by exploitation and neglect of the source of raw materials.

Everything we need is just sitting there waiting for us to come get it and always has been.

Capitalism is the source of all that is "not so good" in the world for all but those who own the means of production, even if they produce nothing of substance and benefit from producing nothing like the most wealthy do.

Your slice of the pie is being kept in a warehouse until the time is right to sell it at a ridiculously inflated price to an ignorant young person who thinks they have the world by the tail, when in reality those ignorant people are being swung around by their tail....

I know, not making sense, need more coffee....

a reply to: sirhumperdink

lol (seriously, I lol'd when I read this)

Thanks for the entertainment!