Bah. Immediatist running dog! You’ll be first up against the wall you, like.
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We’re running the fuck out of time to save the world… Bernie’s the last one who has a chance, IMO.
We could be fucked already.
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Thanks for sharing your experience. Have you seen The Lives of Others? It would be great to hear your take on it.
Okay, so it’s working well for you then. Good to hear.
I read the introduction to the Selfish Gene and threw the book across the room. I recognize that Dawkins is substantially more knowledgeable than the average person throwing out ideas of genetics based selfishness, but my objection goes beyond the pop-culture idea that the Selfish Gene became. I’m sure Dawkins knows that genes aren’t actually selfish, that they are just molecules doing what molecules do, incapable of selfishness, and that “selfish” is meant as a metaphor.
But what about an alternative metaphor of the compassionate gene? In human beings, the greatest antidote to selfishness is understanding other people. Most people are inclined to look after themselves and their own families, and their friends. The reason why people aren’t as interested in looking after people they haven’t met is only because they haven’t met them. It’s myopia - people are compassionate but they don’t do a good job of acknowledging the humanity of other people.
How does this metaphor apply to genes? An individual molecule floating by itself cannot be said to have any knowledge of other molecules around it. But genes interact with one another. That same process by which a gene expresses it’s metaphorical selfishness is a process by which it works with other genes to the benefit of both. As soon as genes are “aware” of one another, they “intuitively” “help” one another. Genes that don’t help get weeded out really fast (often by simply being fatal).
This metaphor explains the behaviour of genes exactly as well as the selfish gene metaphor, and it works much better to explain the behaviour of the animals that genes make as they form societies. We can regard the “selfishness” observed as a limited case of “compassion”, the case where a being is only really aware of it’s own needs and feelings but is nonetheless caring for a being worthy of that caring.
The idea that if we are selfish then we’ll help each other because it is in our own interest to help each other just shows how wrong the idea metaphor of selfishness is. When you arrive at a contradiction (if selfish then not selfish) you are supposed to recognize that you did something wrong, not say you’ve made a breakthrough. It’s not a contradiction because the selfishness involved in metaphorical and the metaphor works different ways (it’s really if metaphorical-selfish then not other-metaphorical-selfish) but it gets translated into common understanding as the contradiction. And that contradiction (selfishness helps others, greed is good) is presently in the process of ruining western society.
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I wasn’t going to read your comment because it’s so long, but it was worth every second. Moar plz!
+1000 <3’s, would read again.
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Yes, years ago. As I remember it, it’s pretty accurate. I am Hungarian born (but lived in West Germany & US in 80s) East Germany had a far more sophisticated totalitarian bureaucracy than Hungary, probably because they had more time to practice in 30s. Roland Jahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Jahn wrote an interesting book on what everyday surveillance does to your mind and to a community-- not available in English (I wonder why) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wir-Angepassten-Überleben-Roland-Jahn/dp/3492056318
Even the title is hard to translate: Us, the “Well-adjusted” lot: Survival in the GDR. Important to note that he became a high profile dissident in his 20s and is now Head of the Stasi Archives.
My hope is that the one good thing that will come out of the 20th Century German disaster is the lasting memory of the inherent value of privacy over state oversight. Still holding my breath on that one…
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Yes, and thanks again. How I wish ordinary Westerners could listen (ha) and learn that lesson.
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I was being tongue-in-cheek with that comment but I realize from the replies that it read as serious. So I added a winky 
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Mostly it was the staffs of House and Senate Democrats, plus a goodly number of pharmaceutical lobbyists.
this is a surprise, normally the pharma business is happy with more money in the healthcare system
It’s also important to disentangle “socialism” from “capitalism with a generous social safety net”. The European countries held out as models for America are generally the latter.
Under real socialism, the production, allocation and distribution of goods (other than luxury and incidental items) are under centralized political control. This eliminates the problem of too many kinds of deodorant which Bernie Sanders brought to our attention.
Well, pretty much every segment of healthcare - doctors, hospitals, insurers - is taking big hits under Obamacare.
Except pharma, which continues to enjoy monopoly status with effectively unlimited reimbursement.
Not necessarily. It was the Soviet Russian system of socialism though.
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We certainly are not likely to get major wealth distribution via the political system. Many of the .1%, particularly in tech and entertainment, and increasingly in finance, have learned well how to inoculate themselves against this by publicly supporting and donating to various leftist causes and candidates.
And what’s different about today as compared to 1789 and 1917 is the ability to move wealth across borders. Yes, the Cheka may confiscate Bill Gates’ 60,000 square foot house and gift it to some prominent member of the revolutionary vanguard, but I’m pretty sure that most of Bill’s assets can be put out of reach with a few dozen keystrokes.
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True you need a good foundation before you can build anything else.
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No clue where you got the idea that centralised political control is innate to Socialism. How about some references? Or details of what “real” Socialism is in opposition to “unreal” Socialism? Your terminology seems muddled.
The Bolsheviks decided under Lenin that centralising was needed in Russia, because it was (and some of us still think, it is) a Medieval big mess. But that has nothing to do with Socialism and everything to do with the leftover disaster from Tsarist Russia which is still walking around in the shape of Mr P.
Europe had a number of Socialist Republics post WW1 called Räterepubliks here is one example: Bavarian Soviet Republic - Wikipedia.
The term comes from Rat which means advisor / council in German. Hungary also had one ( Räterepublik, not an advisor) , as did a number of cities in Central Europe. Their defining feature was not centralisation (quite the opposite) but Socialism i.e. shared means of production, and one of their great legacy was decent housing for workers, which have stood the test of time.
The word comes from “sociare” to share in Latin. Have a read here Socialism - Wikipedia
Socialism is an ideology that emphasis sharing over sell-interest, centralisation has nothing to do with socialism per se. It is merely a ontologically different view from Market Fundamentalism, which thinks that self-interest always trumps all human activity and sharing is for losers–see (and enjoy) Mr Donald Trump as the grand embodiment of that narrative.
So, in summary, when you keep insisting that terms mean what you want them to mean rather than as they are being commonly defined, please provide references for why your belief should trump common usage.
Humans need words to imagine a different reality and if we want to get out of the current not so great reality we have to start talking about a different one. Words matter and just banging on about the totalitarian mess that was the Eastern Block, in not small part thanks to being a buffer zone between two testosterone driven Superpowers, than you are denying us all the imagination that something could look different and thrive.
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That’s not the comment I was replying to.
What makes centralized control “real socialism”? This sounds more like playing with definitions. It’s definitely not the kind of socialism I subscribe to.
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That’s beyond personal opinion, it’s an out-and-out lie.
Republicans (both elected and non), lobbyists and insurance companies are the reason for it. They’re PROUD of it too, and are happy to claim victory for their work, so why are you trying to hide their glory?
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Every doctor, nurse, and hospital administrator I know is thrilled that more people are able to get medical care, and sooner in the process before problems hit acute or even emergency status.
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