In one sense, you’re correct, in that people will generally profess to care about these things when asked in those specific terms.
But if you ask them about things like expanding welfare and entitlement programs, suddenly everyone “Knows this one lady that was driving a Lexus while on food stamps” and “Ugh I can’t stand those welfare queens having 20 kids and I’m paying for it”, even though those things are statistically insignificant and are not representative of these programs.
Ever read that Monkeysphere article? Humans in general stop thinking of people outside their social group as “part of their group”, and start thinking of them as aliens that want to take your precioussssss resources away. That’s not an opinion, that’s a broad statement that pretty much encapsulates the current conclusions of modern evolutionary psychology research.
Take away government enforcement of “be pretty decent to each other or else we put you in a box”, and we start acting like violent sociopaths in short order, because we don’t think of the “other” groups as “real humans”.
Edit: I also find it telling that everyone argued with the first two points, and sort of ignored the “iPhones and status symbols” one. Heh.
Just because they are being lied to by Fox News/The Daily Mail, doesn’t mean that they really believe that. There will always be an exception, someone who they believe deserves the welfare they are receiving. That is where you start justifying expansion of welfare from, once they realise that the people who are believed are deserving are both statistically significant once they are all counted and unfairly being punished for the acts of a insignificant minority.
And why does The Daily Mail/Fox News lie to them? Because there is money in it i.e. capitalism.
I do not say “not in my experience” lightly. I have experienced some really bad shit from a few people. Most people wanted to help me, but felt they didn’t have the power to do anything. This is part of what shaped my politics.
So why is Rojava one of the better (if not the best) places to be if you are in Syria? By your reasoning it should be worse than the IS controlled areas.
That’s because it is capitalist marketing and advertising agencies making iphones (or any other percieved luxury item) desirable. Would people value those items as highly if they weren’t being told that they are valuable on a daily basis?
Also, I can’t be counted on to reply to every point as I am struggling with SAD. If you rely on that to claim victory, just know that you are straying into Gish-galloping territory. Now, I’m going to stop as this comment is longer than I intended and my spelling is getting really bad.
I’ll agree that there is a significant percentage of people who behave like childish and narrow-minded arseholes when it comes to prioritising things, but they’re still far from the majority and most of them behave that way in very specific situations or under toxic influences (e.g. advertising or right-wing rhetoric).
I highly doubt that it’s laws against homicide than keep most people from killing others. Laws are a reflection of human preferences for how society should operate, and many of them exist to address outlier cases of transgression.
First of all: I feel like you’re trying to staple “This Guy Is Defending Capitalism: Everyone Attack!!!” to me, and I don’t appreciate it.
I’m discussing, specifically, what things people are trying to “fix” by replacing capitalism with (insert -ism here) and whether or not those are inherent to capitalism or if they’re a bug in human nature.
We can discuss whether those things are better addressed under other systems, but you’re falling back on the “but capitalism is bad, therefore (whatever -ism I like) MUST be better!” argument, which is so fundamentally flawed that I can’t even begin to address it here.
State what problems you have with capitalism. Prove that they are inherent to capitalism or at least are better addressed by some other system. Do your honest best to find all new problems your system would introduce and give a fair balance between what would be lost and gained with your ‘-ism’ and why that, on the balance, we gain more than we lose with it. Honestly address all questions about unintended consequences.
Note that we’re not past Step 1 here, you’re just throwing rocks, which is one of the most common problems I have when debating Libertarians and the 700+ flavors of anarchists out there (I believe mutualists are the hot flavor of the month now?).
Intellectual Property and Land monopolies are inherent to capitalism and all the effects of the two therein. The solution to fixing both is socializing both to the benefit of all as a common property (at minimum) of the people. This can be done either the Georgist/Geo-libertarian way of taxing such monopolies or by outright nationalization/democraticzation of access to such things. Both solutions are deemed by capitalists as an anathema to the economy despite evidence being contrary to such an assertion.
Her husband died with the king owing him a ton of money. She went into seclusion in grief, and suddenly the church and king are buddying up to throw a bunch of horrifyingly insane allegations at her (with literally no proof other than some highly questionable testimony from the king’s subjects).
She was gotten out of the way, and the king suddenly got his massive debt wiped out. HMMMMM. Wonder what happened there, certainly wouldn’t be a clumsy frame-up to get rid of crippling debt to the crown!
How exactly would both of those work, especially IP? That underlies a lot of our economy at this point, and removing all IP control would mean that, for example, I can’t own any code I write, meaning that it incentivizes people to steal each others’ work, or to obfuscate code to an insane degree to keep people from stealing it, preventing us from learning from each others’ advances.
Its more like “This Guy is Defending the worst aspects of Oligarchy: Everyone Attack!!!”.
Capitalism thrives on free markets, ones which are regulated to prevent monopolization and restriction of trade. This guy openly supports such measures as a form of social control. He supports using government resources for self-aggrandization and consolidation of personal power. Basically a fascist.
Not every aspect of life has a market solution either. Generally privatization has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with cronyism. Giving away public resources to a select private parties.
It doesn’t exist in the world as we see it. Its typical advocates are actually oligarchists. People looking to limit trade and profit for a small artificial few.
It doesn’t apply to government actions nor provides a guide to responsible governance of a free society.
That may be your perception, but it isn’t my intention. If I deliberately attack I get very nasty fast and will most likely get a ban for the trouble.
So I am sorry if, though ill health, I have managed to mangle my words badly enough that you feel I am attacking you. I do fuck up from time to time.
As for the rest of what you said, I have already said I intend to stop replying because it is affecting my health. I expect someone else will reply though, even if I don’t 100% agree with them. Personally I don’t identify as a mutualist, I’m more of a borderline anarcho-communist.
This is an interesting point, because late-stage capitalism of the sort idealised by Thiel and other extreme “free” market types is very interested in bringing out and exploiting those bugs and normalising the idea not only that humanity is “red in tooth and claw” but that it’s a good thing in the context of the market and should therefore be unfettered by the state (as mentioned elsewhere, Ayn Rand extended this viewpoint to an actual murderer).
“In 1610, King Matthias II assigned György Thurzó, the Palatine of Hungary, to investigate. Thurzó ordered two notaries to collect evidence in March 1610. In 1610 and 1611, the notaries collected testimony from more than 300 witnesses. The trial records include the testimony of the four defendants, as well as thirteen witnesses. Priests, noblemen and commoners were questioned. Witnesses included the castellan and other personnel of Sárvár castle.”
Its a lot of people to allegedly pay off in order to falsely accuse someone. There is a lot more detail in the article above.
But on the bright side, she was portrayed by the phenomenally lovely Ingrid Pitt in the film version.
Thiel’s fanbase has shifted from Libertarians to the alt-right, which is more friendly to his neofeudalist dreams. That happened because many Libertarians made the shift to the alt-right themselves, finding it an easier and shorter journey than they might have thought.
Yeah, only a minority of libertarians pulled left like myself. But it just became clear to most of us that went that way that the idea of the NAP is only compatible with some kind of anti-capitalist system be it socialism or communism.
