330 replies to this topic

[Alex Libman]

Inequality is an unavoidable side-effect of civilization. Some people will still think like cavemen even in the 21st or 22nd century, and be economically rewarded accordingly, while some people will create positive feedback cycles of cutting-edge economic creativity that will enrich the human civilization by billions, maybe even trillions of dollars. The poor get natural "trickle down" benefits from the things other people create, so once they get their act together they tend to be able to work their way out of poverty relatively quickly. Government-enforced equality is nothing short of theft: it punishes hard work and creativity, rewards laziness and immorality, decelerates economic and thus scientific growth, and gives absolute power to the unavoidably corrupt economic planners (governments) who will continue to put their thirst for power ahead of all other concerns.

Edited by Alex Libman, 07 April 2010 - 12:23 PM.

[rwac]

Interesting. Alex and RR seem to be libertarians, capitalists (there may be some subtle difference I'm unaware of)...
I have a couple of questions for you: what is your opinion on this - specifically those below the poverty line increased from 11% to 18%.

That was due to welfare reforms. It is necessary to encourage people to work, otherwise a section of people (who are healthy) will simply decide to live on welfare. I've heard stories of generations of people living on welfare.
Free riders are a problem for any system.

Secondly, if the free market achieved what it is thought to, why are there homeless people? Surely these people have a demand - for affordable, albeit low-grade housing. So why can't the market seem to provide it for them?

A lot of homeless people are actually mentally ill.
So they're ending up outside the market, and I'm not sure if any system would provide what they need, short of coercive medication.

Edited by rwac, 07 April 2010 - 01:45 PM.

[JLL]

Besides, the housing market is far from a free market.

[DairyProducts]

You have made a lot of good arguments in past posts, but this is by far the worst one I've seen you do. I say that out of respect because I've seen you write much better.

Inequality is an unavoidable side-effect of civilization. Some people will still think like cavemen even in the 21st or 22nd century, and be economically rewarded accordingly, while some people will create positive feedback cycles of cutting-edge economic creativity that will enrich the human civilization by billions, maybe even trillions of dollars.

I agree one hundred percent.

The poor get natural "trickle down" benefits from the things other people create, so once they get their act together they tend to be able to work their way out of poverty relatively quickly.

Once they get their act together? Poverty is negative cycle that makes it harder to get out of the longer you are in it. Not that it's impossible, but much easier said than done and ultimately not possible for many/most (depending on the environment.)

decelerates economic and thus scientific growth, and gives absolute power to the unavoidably corrupt economic planners (governments) who will continue to put their thirst for power ahead of all other concerns.

Economic growth does not exactly equal scientific growth. The greatest minds in the last 10+ years went into finance, not science. We have all suffered for that, but the free market wages drove those talented people towards things that were not only not good for the world, but harmful. Just because money is being made does not mean value is being created. Scientific growth leads to economic growth more than the other way around.
How can projects like the Large Hadron Carrier (large capital required, no immediate economic benefit) be done in the free market? Basic science research is mainly done by Universities/government funded entities, not corporations. I would like to hear how you deal with these issues.

[RighteousReason]

You guys asking about the homeless, the poor, and scientists:

Anybody that exercises an ounce of accountability with their money would find it insanely foolish to flush their charitable funds into the black hole of government. There is such a thing as private charity: it is where individuals choose of their own volition to give their money to a specific organization that they can hold directly accountable, as opposed to a bloated, monolithic organization that uses the power of police and military force to seize the money from themselves and others, a system for which they can only hold a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction accountable through a single measly, diluted vote. The former method of private, voluntary charity is the obvious choice for any informed sane person that genuinely cares about society or responsibility.

You guys don't really seem to know about the endless list of particular and systemic stunning failures, fraud, corruption, and politically motivated insanities that occur as a result of government control.

I have been listening to Neal Boortz for a while and every day during the information overload hour you get to hear about the "government outrage of the day" and usually at least a segment or two on more government outrages. There is so much there that I couldn't begin to give you an idea if you have no source for this kind of news and information. You are missing a huge, important perspective on what is going on out there in the world.

Failing to be philosophically informed is even worse for you.

"The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently; they are most helplessly in its power." - Philosophy: Who needs it?
http://www.tracyfine...ho_needs_it.htm

Edited by RighteousReason, 07 April 2010 - 05:12 PM.

[Putz]

you're correct it's a long way from perfect, complete public ownership of the health services and drug companies would allow much more freedom

Complete public ownership of all drug research would be horribly inefficient. Hell, China couldn't even farm enough crops under such a system, let alone innovate advances - millions starved decades ago. Having the government control all drug research and manufacturing would be akin to allowing millions of people die as they would have been cured otherwise by competitive consumer-following drug companies looking for the "next big thing".

Edited by Putz, 07 April 2010 - 05:37 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

Really don't know why I'm bothering to even try to dent all the ideological illogic yet again, but I highly recommend all of you read http://www.scribd.co...-Wants-You-Dead prior to resuming all this pseudo-debate. Most of you won't, I know, but it's at least an attempt to salvage bright minds from a future of rigidly controlled thought.

Because what we have here is not a failure to communicate, it's a total INABILITY to communicate because the "sides" all exist in their own separate realities defined by ideological beliefs which have little bearing in cold hard reality. That you have FAITH in your various political structures is obvious. Sadly, that Faith is meaningless as it is not based in the realities of human nature, corporate nature, or the plain truth of what works and what doesn't. If all the presuppositions made by each of you were true, your views would be perfectly valid, but as all of your arguments revolve around "perfect states" which do not exist, they are all equally flawed. Reality is what works. Reality is what happens.

Please, read the book.

[RighteousReason]

you're correct it's a long way from perfect, complete public ownership of the health services and drug companies would allow much more freedom

Complete public ownership of all drug research would be horribly inefficient. Hell, China couldn't even farm enough crops under such a system, let alone innovate advances - millions starved decades ago. Having the government control all drug research and manufacturing would be akin to allowing millions of people die as they would have been cured otherwise by competitive consumer-following drug companies looking for the "next big thing".

THANK you.

"The object of Gerson's scorn is misplaced. Gerson does not ask, "How many enterprises and jobs might have been created, how many people might have been saved from illness and disease, how many more poor children might have been fed but for the additional costs, market dislocations, and management inefficiencies that distort supply and demand or discourage research and development as a result of the federal government's role?"

- Mark Levin

[RighteousReason]

Really don't know why I'm bothering to even try to dent all the ideological illogic yet again, but I highly recommend all of you read http://www.scribd.co...-Wants-You-Dead prior to resuming all this pseudo-debate. Most of you won't, I know, but it's at least an attempt to salvage bright minds from a future of rigidly controlled thought.

Because what we have here is not a failure to communicate, it's a total INABILITY to communicate because the "sides" all exist in their own separate realities defined by ideological beliefs which have little bearing in cold hard reality. That you have FAITH in your various political structures is obvious. Sadly, that Faith is meaningless as it is not based in the realities of human nature, corporate nature, or the plain truth of what works and what doesn't. If all the presuppositions made by each of you were true, your views would be perfectly valid, but as all of your arguments revolve around "perfect states" which do not exist, they are all equally flawed. Reality is what works. Reality is what happens.

Please, read the book.

So ... to translate ... the free market does not work because it relies on having faith in an idealistic perfect state which does not exist, but the government is cold hard reality that works.

Well, you are just wrong. This has been demonstrated false in many different ways, from the "invisible hand" of the free market, the fact that private charities exist that do not acquire their funds by force, studies have shown even animals have innate altruistic tendencies.

There is a basic logic to why these things actually do work that is usually not necessary to explicitly define as people generally understand it by their own observation. But I'll give the explanation here, though I doubt telling you explicitly will help if you cannot observe it on your own:

"People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict."

- Ludwig von Mises

Your reality is a reality where might is right.

The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right.

-http://www.tracyfineart.com/usmc/philosophy_who_needs_it.htm

Edited by RighteousReason, 07 April 2010 - 10:29 PM.

[Alex Libman]

Once they get their act together? Poverty is negative cycle that makes it harder to get out of the longer you are in it. Not that it's impossible, but much easier said than done and ultimately not possible for many/most (depending on the environment.)

Breaking out of poverty is easier now than any time in history, and it's about to get easier by huge leaps thanks to $100 laptops, world-wide Internet access, almost limitless free educational resources available on the Internet, and increasing world trade. The amount of rice, beans, vitamin supplements (now less than a cent a day), and water needed to keep a human being alive remains constant, while the efficiency with which those crops can be grown, harvested, and delivered anywhere in the world continues to decline. The problem of poverty could have ended in the 20th century if not for socialist governments standing in the way of free trade, but it will end in the 21st.

The same applies to a number of other problems like crime no longer being a major issue but just a risk reducible to a small insurance fee. The greatest remaining problem for human civilization is the problem of all-powerful government, and it is a problem that threatens to stop the human civilization dead in its tracks!

Economic growth does not exactly equal scientific growth. [...]

Science is not a vague concept, it is a pursuit toward a certain end that has real-world metarialistic needs: people's time, equipment, and so forth. Economic growth is what makes it possible for those things to be accomplished - for a Person A to get an education to work as a research pharmacologist and not a fruit picker, for example, and for Person B to be able to afford the new drugs that Person A works on. And further economic growth will inevitably require new scientific knowledge - how else are you going to build fruit-picking robots when even the cheapest of human labor is no longer cheap enough, or find other ever-better ways to meet the infinite needs of the billions of people on this planet?

The greatest minds in the last 10+ years went into finance, not science. We have all suffered for that, but the free market wages drove those talented people towards things that were not only not good for the world, but harmful.

Finance deals with the allocation of capital, which has been the bottleneck of human achievement for the past century - we need more bright minds in finance to create better economic opportunities, which will in turn lead us to a world where billions of scientists will have a job for them to do.

Just because money is being made does not mean value is being created.

That only applies to government (ex. patents, regulatory bribes, war profiteering, etc). If money is being made in the free market, that means value is being created. What did you think "money" was all about?!

Scientific growth leads to economic growth more than the other way around.

That's kind of like saying that "pooping leads to eating more than the other way around" - a healthy organism will inevitably do both!

How can projects like the Large Hadron Carrier (large capital required, no immediate economic benefit) be done in the free market? Basic science research is mainly done by Universities/government funded entities, not corporations. I would like to hear how you deal with these issues.

LHC is a great example of useless government waste that the free market would do when it would make sense to do it - probably several decades from now, probably in space, and probably for the purpose of producing fuel. And LHC is a particularly bad example to illustrate your point (transporting a U.S. flag to the moon would have been a better example), because it's budget is only around $9 billion. That's chump change compared to what some private sector R&D operations have cost! There is no reason why corporations can't have billions of stockholders, trillions of dollars in assets, and ally themselves in groups for mutually-beneficial R&D projects (including private universities and non-profits).

And who says all private sector profits must be immediate? It's governments that have X-year election cycles and thus a short-term bias! A corporate asset is an asset no matter how long it's expected to take to produce results. The private sector is very good at estimating and monetizing risk and the time-value of money.

Edited by Alex Libman, 07 April 2010 - 10:49 PM.

[AdamSummerfield]

Some people will still think like cavemen even in the 21st or 22nd century...

Firstly, what about mentally and physically disabled?
Second, I've seen people on the television sobbing because they've looked everywhere for jobs and can't find any, and know people who look for work but can't get a job. What about them? The problem of dependency on welfare can be solved by having the government give welfare in the form of giving an employer money to employ someone.

so once they get their act together they tend to be able to work their way out of poverty relatively quickly.

Can you prove this? If so, please give citations.

when it would make sense to do it - probably several decades from now...

I was under the impression that critical innovations such as in circuitry had come about due to better understandings of particle physics, thanks to particle acceleration experiments.

[valkyrie_ice]

Really don't know why I'm bothering to even try to dent all the ideological illogic yet again, but I highly recommend all of you read http://www.scribd.co...-Wants-You-Dead prior to resuming all this pseudo-debate. Most of you won't, I know, but it's at least an attempt to salvage bright minds from a future of rigidly controlled thought.

Because what we have here is not a failure to communicate, it's a total INABILITY to communicate because the "sides" all exist in their own separate realities defined by ideological beliefs which have little bearing in cold hard reality. That you have FAITH in your various political structures is obvious. Sadly, that Faith is meaningless as it is not based in the realities of human nature, corporate nature, or the plain truth of what works and what doesn't. If all the presuppositions made by each of you were true, your views would be perfectly valid, but as all of your arguments revolve around "perfect states" which do not exist, they are all equally flawed. Reality is what works. Reality is what happens.

Please, read the book.

So ... to translate ... the free market does not work because it relies on having faith in an idealistic perfect state which does not exist, but the government is cold hard reality that works.

Wow, you didn't read anything I have said EVER, have you? As I stated, this isn't failure to communicate, but inability to communicate because you are addressing what your ideology is telling you I said instead of what I actually said. Belief vs reality

Read the book.

Now, to clarify to those who are "translating" my words into their ideological mindset, Government is the collective will of the governed. It exists no matter where you live, or what you may chose to call it. Any organization of people will develop a "Collective Will" or Government. Every society in the history of humanity has possessed a "Government"

What you protest is not "Government", it is your ideological idea of "Government" which is based on the viewpoints of those who shared such ideological perceptions with you. Everything you see is restricted by the expectations you have as to what you will see. As such, you ignore any and every aspect of the situation which does not conform to your views. Yes, we have debt. But healthcare is a TINY PERCENT OF THE DEBT CAUSED BY BEING AT WAR. You are arguing about the weight of rice grains and ignoring the 200 ton boulder. You are arguing for political ideas which have been tried and proven not to work by recent history. You are blinding yourself to the reality of what is by only seeing what your ideology allows you to see.

The same goes for most others in this thread. You focus on trees, and ignore the forest.

Well, you are just wrong. This has been demonstrated false in many different ways, from the "invisible hand" of the free market, the fact that private charities exist that do not acquire their funds by force, studies have shown even animals have innate altruistic tendencies.

There is a basic logic to why these things actually do work that is usually not necessary to explicitly define as people generally understand it by their own observation. But I'll give the explanation here, though I doubt telling you explicitly will help if you cannot observe it on your own:

"People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict."

- Ludwig von Mises

Your reality is a reality where might is right.

The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right.

-http://www.tracyfineart.com/usmc/philosophy_who_needs_it.htm

On the contrary RR, My reality is one in which might is increasingly meaningless. Why worry about guns in a world where t-shirts are becoming bullet proof? Why worry about threats of harm in a world in which we are rapidly developing the means to repair any and all damage to the body? I am unconcerned with threats of violence because we are developing means to make violence meaningless. One in which physical strength is meaningless, and one in which the use of force is equally meaningless. Your argument is also pretty illogical, because in every case in which "the government" will "use force" it is a reaction to an individual attempting to enforce their will on either those around them or on the collective itself. If you chose to defy a law by breaking it, you have made the choice to attempt the use of force to enact your will. If you instead chose to defy a law by campaigning to have it overturned via legally established pathways to doing so, at what point is force called for? In every case in which the collective uses force against it's members, it does so as a response to individual use of force against the collective. In other words, in the overwhelming majority of cases, might is indeed being used for right, against those attempting to use might to make right. Your failure to see that is solely due to the ideological blinders thorough which you view reality.


I am also fully cognizant of the fact that even charity is a selfish act, made not to help others but to provide oneself with ego stroking material. You helped someone to make yourself feel better. Every action any human makes is selfish in nature. Only the Collective has the ability to act beyond individual self interest, because it is acting in the collective's self interest. People obey the collective because they see self benefit in doing so, and because the collective can both reward and punish members who fail to follow the collective will. Sad to say, the overall collective is prey to parasites, both human and ideological, but by and large the collective seeks to maximize the greatest benefit to the largest number of people, while minimizing the individual cost.

The nature of the collective is not going to change, regardless of what political ideologies you hold. If you participate as a member of a collective, it has the right to demand certain responsibilities of you in exchange for the benefits you receive from it. The greater the benefits you receive, the greater your responsibility to the collective.

And JLL? You gave the "Government" the right to expect you to live up to your responsibilities to the collective by remaining a US citizen when you reached 18. You accepted the social contract of majority rule by accepting the benefits of US citizenship. You continue to give the government that right by remaining a US citizen. If you wish to change that social contract, feel free to campaign and vote to change it. However, until you succeed in changing it, so long as you remain a US citizen, you will still be bound to majority rule. Feel free to revoke your US citizenship at will.

But human nature is always going to try to maximize the benefits, and minimize the responsibilities. And it is because of that, we have the problems we have today, in which a small minority have maximized their personal benefits to the point of harming the rest of the collective, and are seeking to avoid any and all responsibility. This has always been the biggest problem in human systems of government, because the collective has lacked the means to prevent small groups from pretending to serve the collective while actually subverting the system to maximize their own personal benefits. In prior history, every government has fallen prey to minorities gaming the collective to maximize personal benefit regardless of the harm they cause to the collective as a whole. And that includes the "Corporate Government", who are suffering the exact same problems with their executives, to the companies harm.

And regardless of what you think is right or wrong, history shows all too well that the human response to such conditions is to purge the harmful components of the collective. At present, that purging process is going to involve massive upsets in government as the collective begins removing the corrupted political machinery which enabled such harm to be done. In America, I do have hopes it will be done peacefully through the legally established means such as campaigning and voting, but I am quite well aware of the potential for violence from people who have allowed fear to cloud their judgement and therefore have lost touch with reality. I am also entirely too conversant with the history of human violence.

As for where I see things headed, my views are not based on any ideology held by the left, or the right, or the polka dotted. I read the commentary being made from the people, looking for the quiet rational voices among all the shouting and fearmongering. And that tells me that the day of the corporations is ending, that transparency and accountability is coming both to the government and the American people. And that the days of those who seek to exploit the system for their own personal gain are ending. Call it whatever you will, it's meaningless. It's what the collective is evolving towards. Feel free to run to another country, but that's not going to be an escape for very long. As more and more of the world joins the internet age your freedom to benefit yourself at the expense of others will inevitably be curtailed.

And in exchange, you will benefit far more without needing to take from others.

Do not ever make the mistake of assuming that what exists today will remain the same. Do not ignore the lessons of history, and do not let yourself be ruled by fear. Our world is changing, quickly. More quickly than even most people are believing it can change. I am not worried about how will we pay for something ten years from now, because the world's economy is going to be vastly different by then. My sole concern is getting from now until the inevitable future of abundance. Corporations cannot survive in their present forms for even a handful of years more. They will either be regulated by the will of the people, and rendered subservient to the greater good, or they will bankrupt themselves and collapse trying to preserve their historical forms. Newer, more flexible, more responsive to the real market companies will cheerfully cut their throats. The fears of government "socialism" are as groundless as those of "Corporatocracy" The future is far more communistic, with the people and their personal nanofactories in total control of manufacturing. And as more people are connected, and able to augment their intelligence with the internet, and more people become better informed of reality beyond their little world, we will develop towards an intelligent democracy, in which everyone has a voice, a vote, and a responsibility.

Yes. The future is one in which your personal freedoms to do whatever you wish will be vastly different from today. From universal surveillance, via ten billion cellphone/vr cameras/security cams, you will lose your "privacy" and because those cameras are tracking EVERYONE, in exchange, the government is going to lose it's secrecy as well. It's going to be being watched like a hawk by millions of people all eager as paparazzi to catch their government officials red-handed. You won't be able to break a law uncaught, but those laws are going to evolve into a far simpler, more "natural" version because no-one will be able to lie or conceal evidence. Eventually, most laws will be unneeded as most crime will cease. The human nature of getting away with whatever you can will be dealt with. Corrupt governments, corporations, or power groups cannot survive in such an environment. Yes, the future is going to involve those who benefit most from the current system being responsible for aiding those whom they have caused the most harm. Call it robbery or social justice, it is still going to occur. Universal access to healthcare, education, housing, internet, and income are also going to happen eventually, regardless of your political ideals, because these things benefit society as a whole, and are becoming easier to provide as technology advances. They are needed now, and that need is growing as technology continues to provide new ways of doing things, and makes old ways obsolete. We will never recover a manufacturing industrial base in the USA, because it is becoming obsolete. More and more jobs will continue to vanish between now and the beginning of the economy of abundance, and more and more people will suffer as a result. And the more people who suffer from that reality, the more call there will be for these humanitarian rights. As a species, we are evolving away from "I gain, you lose" to "We gain, no-one loses."

This is reality. Not hundred year old economic theories based on industrial era innovations. We are not in an industrial age anymore, and as such, your arguments do not take into consideration the realities of our present age. We cannot plan for the future on the assumptions that reality is the same as it was in the past, or that what has been true in the past will continue to hold true for any length of time in the future. Change is happening too rapidly. We must learn the lessons of the past, the REAL lessons as opposed to the ideological talking points that try to warp and distort the facts to meet with ideological worldviews, and move on, into a future for which very few of us are prepared.

[RighteousReason]

eek. This is like that time I started a thread here on the movie "Loose Change" about the 9/11 conspiracy
http://www.imminst.o...showtopic=12325

some people are just vulnerable to being psychologically overrun on certain subjects.

here was an interesting quote from that thread:
"We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality." - Sigmund Freud

[eternaltraveler]

Government is the collective will of the governed

But healthcare is a TINY PERCENT OF THE DEBT CAUSED BY BEING AT WAR

so what? both are the collective will of the governed are they not? that's what you want.

government is the collective will of whoever is in charge of the government. Often, 1 person. In other cases where you give democracy where there was none Hamas gets elected. The "governed" are often slaves.

I am unconcerned with threats of violence because we are developing means to make violence meaningless

what exactly fills you will so much confidence?

As for where I see things headed, my views are not based on any ideology held by the left, or the right, or the polka dotted

where do you see things headed? is it based on anything?

your freedom to benefit yourself at the expense of others will inevitably be curtailed.

what about your freedom to benefit yourself by enriching others?

I am not worried about how will we pay for something ten years from now

The collective will of the governed is with you on that one.

move on, into a future for which very few of us are prepared.

In the post scarcity (of the things that are now scarce) world where everyone has a magic toaster oven that can spit them out whatever they want you seem to ignore that with such technology greater than human intelligence will likely already exist, which may or may not be friendly. Otherwise the above diatribe speaks of a pathological optimism. Surely you realize that futures very different from your example are very possible?

[RighteousReason]

I agree though that anarcho-capitalism is perfectly compatible with Objectivism-- it's entirely what Ayn Rand intended, and indeed AC could never work without *objective law* -- not just any irrational law system(s).

My argument is not that objective law is incompatible with emergence, the free market, or even polycentrism, just that emergent free-market polycentric law is not necessarily objective law, and that these concepts are not part of the definition of what objective law actually is.

"Most of those embryonic tribal gangs are leftist or collectivist. But, as a demonstration of the fact that the cause of tribalism is deeper than politics, there are tribalists still further removed from reality, who claim to be rightists. They are champions of individualism, they claim, which they define as the right to form one's own gang ... and they intend to preserve capitalism, they claim, by replacing it with anarchism (establishing "private" or "competing" governments, i.e., tribal rule). The common denominator of such individualists is the desire to escape from objectivity (objectivity requires a very long conceptual chain and very abstract principles), to act on whim, and to deal with men rather than with ideas—i.e., with the men of their own gang bound by the same concretes."
- The Missing Link by Ayn Rand (a chapter out of Philosophy: Who Needs It)

I feel like it's my function to state what I've figured out on my own and then stumble onto where Ayn Rand has inevitably already explained it with greater eloquence and context. It was the same with Eliezer Yudkowsky back in the day.

Edited by RighteousReason, 09 April 2010 - 03:49 AM.

[valkyrie_ice]

eek. This is like that time I started a thread here on the movie "Loose Change" about the 9/11 conspiracy
http://www.imminst.o...showtopic=12325

some people are just vulnerable to being psychologically overrun on certain subjects.

here was an interesting quote from that thread:
"We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality." - Sigmund Freud

Of course, anything but face reality. "Let's insinuate that Val is insane and therefore I don't need to listen to her."

Defense tactics 101: Deride, Dismiss, Discredit, Dehumanize.

[Alex Libman]

Firstly, what about mentally and physically disabled?

Physical disability is no longer an issue in the 21st century. You can be a brain in a fish-tank (no offense to any isolated brains who may be reading this in the future) and still be a "rational economic actor" and make billions. Mental disability is a serious issue, and one of the very few things for which I advocate charity.

Second, I've seen people on the television sobbing because they've looked everywhere for jobs and can't find any, and know people who look for work but can't get a job. What about them? The problem of dependency on welfare can be solved by having the government give welfare in the form of giving an employer money to employ someone.

Human labor is a commodity that has a certain market-determined value, which can be very high or very low depending on the competitive value that you are able to offer. As the cost of mere survival continues to decrease relative to overall capital within a society, so does the number of potential jobs available. Even if the best job you can find is being some pervert's butt-boy for thirty cents an hour, that still gets you a place to live (since you may be needed at any time 24/7), food and water, wi-fi Internet (which will soon be as ubiquitous as oxygen on Earth), and the ability to save up enough money to buy a NetBook after a few months. (And if I had a butt-boy I'd be generous enough to provide a nice laptop that goes with the job - an informed butt-boy is an effective butt-boy.)

This worst-case-scenario has obviously gone too far, but it's still an example of how people with no employable skills whatsoever can pull their economic weight, bootstrap their careers, and use their free time for self-education until they can obtain a better job. Those people sobbing on TV are not willing to be butt-boys or to work so cheap, and it is the government that brainwashed them into believing that they are "entitled" to unearned "minimum wage", government-backed union demands, and so forth. Government regulation is the root of all unemployment.

Can you prove this? If so, please give citations.

I was going to have my senior butt-boy hyperlink my references in all my forum rants for me, but government regulations are just too much. I guess we'll all have to live with the consequences...

Edited by Alex Libman, 09 April 2010 - 05:54 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

[quote name='eternaltraveler' post='398137' date='Apr 9 2010, 03:32 AM'][quote]Government is the collective will of the governed[/quote]

[quote]But healthcare is a TINY PERCENT OF THE DEBT CAUSED BY BEING AT WAR[/quote]

so what? both are the collective will of the governed are they not? that's what you want.

government is the collective will of whoever is in charge of the government. Often, 1 person. In other cases where you give democracy where there was none Hamas gets elected. The "governed" are often slaves. [/quote]

At what point did I say that the system lacked flaws? I have stated what government IS. And how does one person control a collective? Because the collective allows it to happen. Do you truly think that any one person could maintain control without the consent of the governed, be it direct implicit consent or be it implied consent due to failure to act? I did state that Government has always been vulnerable to parasites. Simply pointing out failure modes that inevitably get corrected once enough harm is inflicted does not change what government is.

Simple Fact. NO TYRANNY HAS EXISTED FOREVER.

As for the war? Most polls I have seen which were not biased have been opposed to the war. Only the Republicans seem to be for it with rabid glee. And they fought tooth and nail to prevent Obama from ending it. However, I don't see this war being able to be sustained for more than another year, if that.

[quote][quote]I am unconcerned with threats of violence because we are developing means to make violence meaningless[/quote]

what exactly fills you will so much confidence?[/quote]

40 years of watching the Singularity happen around me. 40 years of watching wars become too expensive to fight, to the point that a military venture that would have been amounted to barely a weeks worth of fighting in WW2 is BANKRUPTING the same country that once launched MILLIONS of soldiers into war. War is becoming obsolete. It isn't yet, but it is rapidly becoming so.


[quote][quote]As for where I see things headed, my views are not based on any ideology held by the left, or the right, or the polka dotted[/quote]

where do you see things headed? is it based on anything? [/quote]


40 years of observation. As explained in my post. I talk to people, a lot of people. I read almost constantly. I talk to people around the world.

And I told you where things are headed as well. This decade is going to be a meatgrinder. The people are going to be forcing the various industrialized governments to become honest representatives again. A purging of the parasites is coming, and secrecy is going to end. It's not going to happen in a day, or a year, or a single presidents term, but it IS going to happen. Sadly, a lot of people may die unless those who want violence can be convinced to seek peaceful and legal means to address their grievances. Regardless, the end result is going to be a 1 voice, 1 vote democracy, with universal surveillance enforcing honesty on all sides. Does this rule out temporary conditions of tyranny, corporate control, or whatever? Not at all. But in the current era, these are increasingly unsustainable. N Korea only maintains it's dictatorship by preventing it's citizens access to the internet or any other source of information. Iran is disintegrating because they lost that control when smartphones made it the populace. No tyrannical government can survive in a environment of connectivity, regardless of how hard they try to censor, because people can communicate with each other, and share information. China is learning that fact despite what their PR might try to make you think. The People are discovering their power. http://www.hplusmaga...destroy-engines

And we are seeing that truth being played out right now in America. Ignore the Loud Minorities. The silent majority is making it's displeasure known more and more.

[quote][quote]your freedom to benefit yourself at the expense of others will inevitably be curtailed.[/quote]

what about your freedom to benefit yourself by enriching others?[/quote]

What about it? Do you somehow think charitable acts will be outlawed? Or are you attempting to claim that earning 500 million for bankrupting your company while the employee's get nothing is not exploitive? Or good for the company that you ran into the ground? Parasites do one of two things. Kill their hosts, or get purged from them.


[quote][quote]I am not worried about how will we pay for something ten years from now[/quote]

The collective will of the governed is with you on that one. [/quote]

Don't study history do you? Four years of hands off by one president simply made the Great Depression worse. Then FDR spent like a mofo, went into massive debt, and brought the country out of the depression. And once done, we became the richest country in the world. Pity that since then the Republicans have done nothing but breakdown everything FDR built up, including the American People.

But the Dems aren't much better, since they were so eager to get a majority that they packed their party with exactly what they were fighting against.

Nov will be a bloodbath for both sides. and I think it likely we will see a split in the Dems to a Progressive and a Conservative party, with the Republicans becoming more and more a fringe party. I don't think the GOP can recover at this point.

However, the more parties we have in Congress the better it is for the American People. Two party politics has proven to be too vulnerable to parasites.

[quote][quote]move on, into a future for which very few of us are prepared.[/quote]

In the post scarcity (of the things that are now scarce) world where everyone has a magic toaster oven that can spit them out whatever they want you seem to ignore that with such technology greater than human intelligence will likely already exist, which may or may not be friendly. Otherwise the above diatribe speaks of a pathological optimism. Surely you realize that futures very different from your example are very possible?
[/quote]


No, sorry. I don't see better than human intelligence prior to nanotech. We have the basics of nanotech now. We will have full nanotech inside of 15-20 years. While a breakthrough in AI is always possible, it cannot be predicted, and at present AI appears to be significantly further off than nanotech.

Nor is nanotech 100% necessary for an economy of abundance, as bioprinters could develop to the point of being able to create any biological tissue, including food stock, and 3d printers are rapidly advancing to the point where they may become capable of printing any household item you could wish.

And again, are other futures possible? Of course. But they are less likely, and most are contingent on events which are inherently unpredictable. I also do not see many of those "horrible futures" as the disasters some people fear. Yes, many of them involve massive suffering. Many of them could lead to the destruction of the human race, but most of the worst case scenarios involve unlikely triggers. Those with higher probability involve human factors which are increasingly being addressed. As such, most of these "disasters" might cause horrible, but temporary, effects, followed by a rebound and backlash that will prevent them from reoccuring.

Believe as you will. I am merely reporting what I see based on observation and history.

[RighteousReason]

as Jeffrey Kuhner pointed out it may be time for dissenters to practice non-violent civil disobedience against this law, in the same way as Martin Luther King Jr.

Mark Levin: Civil disobedience is coming

You can push and push and push. We're not British, we're not French, we're not Canadians- we are Americans- and at some point we don't put up with this crap.

...

Because the truth is, we, the American citizen, we don't exist for the government ... the government exists FOR US.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Edited by RighteousReason, 09 April 2010 - 08:33 PM.

[RighteousReason]

eek. This is like that time I started a thread here on the movie "Loose Change" about the 9/11 conspiracy
http://www.imminst.o...showtopic=12325

some people are just vulnerable to being psychologically overrun on certain subjects.

here was an interesting quote from that thread:
"We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality." - Sigmund Freud

Of course, anything but face reality. "Let's insinuate that Val is insane and therefore I don't need to listen to her."

Defense tactics 101: Deride, Dismiss, Discredit, Dehumanize.

meh I'm just making observations, I'm not really arguing with you. I appreciate eternaltraveler doing that so effectively.

you want to talk about defense tactics? Look at what the Democrats and mainstream media are doing to the Tea Parties.

Edited by RighteousReason, 09 April 2010 - 08:42 PM.

[RighteousReason]

"And when I say "freedom," I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as "freedom from want" or "freedom from fear" or "freedom from the necessity of earning a living," I mean "freedom from compulsion - freedom from rule by physical force." Which means: political freedom.

Edited by RighteousReason, 09 April 2010 - 10:25 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

as Jeffrey Kuhner pointed out it may be time for dissenters to practice non-violent civil disobedience against this law, in the same way as Martin Luther King Jr.

Mark Levin: Civil disobedience is coming

You can push and push and push. We're not British, we're not French, we're not Canadians- we are Americans- and at some point we don't put up with this crap.

...

Because the truth is, we, the American citizen, we don't exist for the government ... the government exists FOR US.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

The problem, RR, is that not everyone feels anything unjust has occurred under Obama, other than the fact that needed acts were hindered by those who's sole reason to oppose was the desire to put themselves back in power following a legal election against them.

[bobdrake12]

The problem, RR, is that not everyone feels anything unjust has occurred under Obama, other than the fact that needed acts were hindered by those who's sole reason to oppose was the desire to put themselves back in power following a legal election against them.

'valkyrie_ice',

Could you help me to understand?

Can you please give me some examples of:

...needed acts were hindered by those who's sole reason to oppose was the desire to put themselves back in power following a legal election against them.

Edited by bobdrake12, 10 April 2010 - 03:16 AM.

[bobdrake12]

Alright, so we agree to disagree. (At least until you find the time and the mental effort to do more research on emergence in economics and jurisprudence.)

In the meantime... This is an ObamaCare thread! Let's cooperate in debunking socialist lies and disinformation instead!

Alex,

Can you provide your rationale for defining the Heathcare Reform legislation as socialist?

o What major provisions in the Bill are socialistic?
o What is your definition of socialism


http://www.healthref...provisions.html

Key Provisions That Take Effect Immediately

1.SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS—Offers tax credits to small businesses to make employee coverage more affordable. Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be available to firms that choose to offer coverage. Effective beginning calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2014, the small business tax credits will cover 50 percent of premiums.)


2.NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN WITH PRE‐EXISTING CONDITIONS—Prohibits new health plans in all markets plus grandfathered group health plans from denying coverage to children with pre‐existing conditions. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, this prohibition would apply to all persons.)


3.HELP FOR UNINSURED AMERICANS WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS UNTIL EXCHANGE IS AVAILABLE (INTERIM HIGH‐RISK POOL)—Provides access to affordable insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre‐existing condition through a temporary subsidized high‐risk pool. Effective in 2010.


4.ENDS RESCISSIONS—Bans insurance companies from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Effective 6 months after enactment.


5.BEGINS TO CLOSE THE MEDICARE PART D DONUT HOLE—Provides a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010. Effective for calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2011, institutes a 50% discount on prescription drugs in the donut hole; also completely closes the donut hole by 2020.)


6.FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER MEDICARE—Eliminates co‐payments for preventive services and exempts preventive services from deductibles under the Medicare program. Effective beginning January 1, 2011.


7.EXTENDS COVERAGE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UP TO 26TH BIRTHDAY THROUGH PARENTS’ INSURANCE—Requires new health plans and certain grandfathered plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents’ insurance policy, at the parents’ choice. Effective 6 months after enactment.


8.HELP FOR EARLY RETIREES—Creates a temporary re‐insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive premiums for employers and retirees for health benefits for retirees age 55‐64. Effective in 2010.


9.BANS LIFETIME LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Prohibits health insurance companies from placing lifetime caps on coverage. Effective 6 months after enactment.


10.BANS RESTRICTIVE ANNUAL LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Tightly restricts the use of annual limits to ensure access to needed care in all new plans and grandfathered group health plans. These tight restrictions will be defined by HHS. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, the use of any annual limits would be prohibited for all new plans and grandfathered group health plans.)


11.FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER NEW PRIVATE PLANS—Requires new private plans to cover preventive services with no co‐payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles. Effective 6 months after enactment.


12.NEW, INDEPENDENT APPEALS PROCESS—Ensures consumers in new plans have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal decisions by their health insurance plan. Effective 6 months after enactment.


13.ENSURES VALUE FOR PREMIUM PAYMENTS—Requires plans in the individual and small group market to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services, and plans in the large group market to spend 85 percent. Insurers that do not meet these thresholds must provide rebates to policyholders. Effective on January 1, 2011.


14.COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS—Increases funding for Community Health Centers to allow for nearly a doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2011.


15.INCREASES THE NUMBER OF PRIMARY CARE PRACTITIONERS—Provides new investments to increase the number of primary care practitioners, including doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2011.


16.PROHIBITS DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SALARY—Prohibits new group health plans from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that have the effect of discriminating in favor of higher wage employees. Effective 6 months after enactment.


17.HEALTH INSURANCE CONSUMER INFORMATION—Provides aid to states in establishing offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals with the filing of complaints and appeals. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.


18.HOLDS INSURANCE COMPANIES ACCOUNTABLE FOR UNREASONABLE RATE HIKES—Creates a grant program to support States in requiring health insurance companies to submit justification for all requested premium increases, and insurance companies with excessive or unjustified premium exchanges may not be able to participate in the new Health Insurance Exchanges. Starting in plan year 2011.

[bobdrake12]

Look at what the Democrats and mainstream media are doing to the Tea Parties.

RighteousReason,

I hardly watch the mainstream media; thus, I need a little help here.

What speicifically is the mainstream media doing to the Tea Parties?

Also I haven't paid much attention to the Tea Parties other than I think they are against raising our taxes and excessive government spending. Other than that, what do the Tea Parties parties stand for?

[RighteousReason]

Look at what the Democrats and mainstream media are doing to the Tea Parties.

RighteousReason,

I hardly watch the mainstream media; thus, I need a little help here.

What speicifically is the mainstream media doing to the Tea Parties?

Also I haven't paid much attention to the Tea Parties other than I think they are against raising our taxes and excessive government spending. Other than that, what do the Tea Parties parties stand for?

that's the core of what the Tea Parties are all about.

here's the tea party thread: http://www.imminst.o...o...c=40149&hl=

I haven't bothered to keep a collection of references laying around about what the democrats and msm have been doing to the tea party / town hall movement. the primary point is that anyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist, and any voicing of that disagreement is hate speech, in addition, tea partiers (or "teabaggers" as they like to say) are generally stupid and violent (remember they are racists, very similar to the KKK and nazis), and like all capitalists, they are angry with the government because it is getting in the way of them exploiting the less fortunate for their own benefit.


"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told "NBC Nightly News."
http://www.cnn.com/2...bama/index.html

"They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."
-- I'm guessing she has no clue that Nazism is national socialism -- which is what is being protested against

http://www.huffingto...i_n_253762.html


it goes on and on ... there are tons of examples of this, I just picked up two that immediately came to mind

Edited by RighteousReason, 10 April 2010 - 04:55 AM.

[AdamSummerfield]

Thanks Alex.

[bobdrake12]

I haven't bothered to keep a collection of references laying around about what the democrats and msm have been doing to the tea party / town hall movement. the primary point is that anyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist, and any voicing of that disagreement is hate speech, in addition, tea partiers (or "teabaggers" as they like to say) are generally stupid and violent (remember they are racists, very similar to the KKK and nazis), and like all capitalists, they are angry with the government because it is getting in the way of them exploiting the less fortunate for their own benefit.


"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told "NBC Nightly News."
http://www.cnn.com/2...bama/index.html

"They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."
-- I'm guessing she has no clue that Nazism is national socialism -- which is what is being protested against

http://www.huffingto...i_n_253762.html

Thanks for the response, RighteousReason!

When a critic makes it personal, perhaps "racism" or better yet the term "ad hominem" fits.

But challenging policy is what people in a Republic have a responsibility to do.

Now lets examine one of the philosophies that apparently drives mainsteam media's Chris Matthews.


Matthews is pictured left of President Obama

It is a fact that Chris Matthews of MSNBC is a student of Saul Alinsky as shown by the video below:



In this video, Matthews deploys Alinzky's tactic of "Keeping the Pressure On":







Rules for Radicals By Saul Alinsky - 1971 is a very worthwhile book to read. Here are a few quotes from it:

o

"The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means...." p.29

o

"An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises....
"The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of conflict." p.117

o

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage." (from the tactics section)

Rules for Radicals provides a framework for community organizers to change the status quo even if both the status quo and proposed change are misrepresented.

But what needs to be considered is whether the change is actually better than the status quo. Somewhere in this Dialectic Process "winning" can become the sole focus. And the actual "win" can eventually result in a negative outcome for some of those who were strongly behind the movement. An example of this self-defeating behavior can be displayed in the video shown below, Triumph des Willens (Full movie - English: subbed):



There is change:




And there is change:



Change by itself is neither good or bad. But can we foresee its consequences?

Edited by bobdrake12, 10 April 2010 - 12:28 PM.

[Alex Libman]

o What major provisions in the Bill are socialistic?

The ones that involve the government doing anything except gradually fragmenting and privatizing itself out of existence.

o What is your definition of socialism

Socialism is a direction, not a destination (even the worst of socialist dictatorships always had a capitalist "black market" and some degree of capitalist foreign trade keeping them afloat), and thus that term should be used relativistically. A "society" that has a mafia boss / government that controls even 1% of its economy by force is socialist compared to an Anarcho-Capitalist society without an involuntary government.

[bobdrake12]

o What major provisions in the Bill are socialistic?

The ones that

Thank you for your response, Alex.

Can you provide just one example of a specific provision in the current legislation that "involve(s) the government doing anything except gradually fragmenting and privatizing itself out of existence."

Edited by bobdrake12, 10 April 2010 - 12:40 PM.