White supremacy run amok

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Speaking of losers and the "witch-hunts"/Nazi-hunts to find them:

Neo-Nazi blubbers like a baby in video reporting he's wanted for arrest in Charlottesville

Love or hate it, this is about as close as you'll get to a non-violent "free market" solution. At least we might get them to mask up again instead of thinking they can walk around without shame. That change alone speaks volumes.

BRUTE
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by BRUTE »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 2:56 pm
You misunderstand, but ironically I think we're getting closer to agreement. It only becomes a zero-sum game when the focus is on privilege (or the removal of existing privilege, aka 99% of complaining about PC).
alright! brute completely agrees with this statement. brute is also in favor of pretty much any policy or project that enables positive-sum improvements for humans who are currently at the lower ends of the happiness/economic stability/equality before the law spectrum. the one caveat is that brute is a libertarian who reads economics in his free time. so his idea of what will benefit those humans is typically quite different from what many humans imagine would benefit them.

how does Spartan_Warrior feel about these policies, for example?

- decriminalization of all drugs. non-violent drug offenses aren't offending anyone, and hit poor socio-economic humans hardest (inner-city blacks and white meth heads).
- decriminalization of victimless crime.
- basically abolishing prison except for psychopathic murderers. currently, prisons breed more criminals and are human rights violation factories. instead, some kind of working-off and repaying damages system. this way, offenders stay integrated into their social environment and society
- where possible, increased voluntary intermingling of all sorts - intellectually, racially, by gender, disabled, whatever. but, please, not by quotas. making humans do things never leads to good things.
- more freedom of school choice. US schools are incredibly segregated, both socio-economically and racially. this is an explicit function of public school policy and school funding. more school choice would help. charter, private, whatever. shock, gasp, even religious schools.
- enabling young and low-skilled humans to enter the work force, instead of basically forcing them to work for drug gangs or stay poor, which breeds resentment for others.
- this means likely decreasing minimum wage and regulations.
- decreasing subsidies for higher education, and somehow slowly ramping down the crazy student loans.
- somehow pushing careers in the trades or similar jobs vs. 4 year college educations. not all jobs require a college degree, and not every college degree is worth the time and money. Trump is apparently doing this. yay, Trump did something right!
- something about the whole illegal immigration thing. it's quite absurd to brute that 1/2 of the southern (west and east) agriculture economy is based on permanently available illegal immigrants that are not subject to minimum wage and regulations. this is pretty dysfunctional. if the economy can't survive without their labor, maybe it should stop. or maybe regulations should be relaxed. but having this permanent state of legal grey area empowers gangs, smugglers, coyotes, instead of the humans who actually immigrate, 99.9% of which are hard-working and honest.

Riggerjack
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Riggerjack »

Well, they guy totally screaming whatever chant they are doing, is obviously totally into the whole thing. But for every pic of him, there seem to be 10 others in the background, who aren't.

I don't know anyone who went. I think. But I can picture a guy going along to keep his dumbass brother from doing anything life changingly stupid, getting caught up in the vigilante justice. Apparently, one of these guys was disowned by his father when he was outted. I can picture some pissed off young man getting into this as the best way to piss of the old man.

I know pissing off my hippy dippy parents was a factor in me joining the army. My decision haunted me for four years, maybe his will only haunt him for four years, but maybe not.

My concern over this really isn't misidentification. It is what kind of world I want to live in. Some folks feel that free speech only protects you from the government. Well, that's where the Constitution stops, but where do we draw the line in society? Personally, I believe that horrible shit grows in the dark, so airing your worst suspicions is healthy for individuals and society. I like to live in a world where if someone feels I have gone too far, they feel comfortable calling me on it. I think we are stronger for it.

I disagree with damn near everything SW has ever typed, but I'm glad he's here, and think we are better for having him. A world where either he or I didn't feel safe saying what we think is a less colorful, vibrant place.

This vigilante justice doesn't promote that.

Earlier in this thread, I announced that I was a nazi sympathizer. I never thought I'd say that! But I was trying to reroute the ranting. Sometimes, saying such over the top things can do that. But also, as I type this, some hacker somewhere could be tracking down my IP address, so they can out me as a nazi. I could be spending the rest of my life trying to unring that bell.

That doesn't make the world a better place for anyone.

Campitor
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Campitor »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:13 am
@Campitor:
As far as the deaths from US imperial wars... so? How many brown people did the Americans kill in those wars? And for what reason? Who benefited for all those deaths?
The people in power benefited from those deaths and they happened to be white. But death by Whites has never been a monopoly that only people of color have endured nor has genocide been a monopoly of the white man. Stalin killed much of his fellow citizens and so did Chairman Mao. The Hutu and Tutsi hacked each other to pieces with machetes and I'm 100% they didn't do it to benefit any white guy. Pol Pot wasn't white and he killed 25% of his fellow citizens. Pinochet killed and tortured large segments of his Chilean population. The Aztecs and the Maya were killing themselves in droves long before the Spanish arrived on their shores. The Japanese were a feudal society who fought each other constantly before they decided that killing Asians on the mainland was a better idea. India and Pakistan have been fighting each other for years. And Ecuador and Peru can't seem to stop fighting over their mutual borders. Look into anyone's history and you will find civil war, tribal conflict, and exploitation. No one is without sin.

TopHatFox
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by TopHatFox »

fiby41 wrote:
Tue Aug 15, 2017 10:48 pm
People who think EREers only eat lentils are the same people who think the only furniture you can have sex on is a bed.
I don't know about that ;)

Carry on. I'm with JennyPenny on this one!

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Brute:

Just when I thought we were finding common ground, I guess it's finally time to bring out the blunt ideological pitches. ;)

I agree with some small portions of what libertarianism proposes. Riggerjack likes to proclaim that he used to be a liberal. Well, I used to consider myself a libertarian. Like I've said before recently, libertarians recognize some real problems, but the causes they attribute to these problems and the economic frameworks they work with take them to counter-intuitive and counter-productive solutions.

They don't like the government because they correctly believe that it's controlled by the rich and thus undemocratic and out to get the little guy. All true. However, instead of recognizing this as the inherent result of a capitalist system that pools wealth in the hands of a few who will inevitably buy disproportionate influence, libertarians invent a bogeyman, "crony capitalism" (frightfully close to the liberal bogeyman of "corporatism" or "corporate capitalism"... nah, all just plain capitalism).

They don't like affirmative action and identity politics because they correctly sense this is in some way a weird liberal shell game that amounts to rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. But instead of focusing on the sinking ship, their loudest focus is on retaining control of their particular chair and lashing out at anyone perceived as taking it away, in what amounts to its own form of identity politics.

They recognize that "taxes are theft", because it is the removal of some of the value of their labor to go to the evil "government" (which, again, really means subsidizing the wealthy who direct the government); but they fail to see that their employer's profits are also theft, because it too is extracted from the full value of their labor. Indeed, wages are definitionally what is left over after your employer takes an ever-increasing portion of the value of your productivity to hand to themselves and shareholders who don't work. In other words, taxes are no more theft than wage labor itself, and either way what is stolen goes to the same place--the wealthy.

So, yeah. You've presented some of the more reasonable ideas of libertarians tbh, but ultimately it still comes out wrong. The ideology cannot serve the purposes of equality or benefit the majority.

Decriminalization of non-violent offenses sounds fine. Great way to undercut some of the systemic oppression that disproportionately affects non-whites. Abolishing for-profit prisons that incentivize incarceration, absolutely, and limiting the kinds of crimes we punish with incarceration, great.

"Increased voluntary intermingling" sounds like an Orwellian way of saying abolishing affirmative action. That could work as long as other changes were made in the system to create equality elsewhere, as otherwise it's basically just shifting the privilege shell game back to white males without addressing the sinking ship.

You lose me instantly with things like "freedom" of school choice. What libertarianism means by the word "freedom" in instances like this is, quite ironically, "available to those who can pay for it".

If the real structural issues holding down the disadvantaged 99% of white men are economic, how does that "freedom" help them? Are you saying that white meth heads and basement dwellers whose main problem is poverty will somehow be able to afford to "choose" a good charter school to improve their family's lot?

Aren't you really trading authority in their lives from one source--government--to another source--their employer? Considering that government is at least nominally democratic and representative, whereas private corporations are authoritarian, how does that change introduce more "freedom" into their lives?

Same thing for "decreasing subsidies for higher education." What that means is making higher education only available to those who can pay for it. Both college and trade schools should be free to attend and non-profit. Only then will poor whites AND blacks, women, et al, have truly equal access with the rich.

Your solution to poverty is to put more people to work at lower wages, selling more life-energy for wages that are ever-decreasing because of permanent trends in automation and human ingenuity that render labor of less and less value over time. This is the opposite of what I consider the humane solution, which would be allowing the bulk of mankind to benefit from those improvements and work less for more, not more for less. Why should only capitalists like ourselves get those benefits of productivity? And what about those poor white men in their mom's basements? If they can't better themselves on their current minimum wage jobs, how will lowering their wages help?

Minimum wage should increase and a maximum wage should be instituted. Better yet, abolish all wages, as the system of wage labor is theft, and provide all employees equal ownership in and equal share of the profits of any business that runs on their labor.

I agree that something should be done about illegal immigration. I don't have an easy solution, but my instinct says the regulations should be relaxed and made more fair. Interestingly, on the subject of quotas, I believe a lot of this problem stems from immigration quotas limiting the influx of residents from countries like Mexico. Not sure about that though.


Going back to the game metaphor to conclude my own counter-pitch: I've established that there are different difficulty modes to the game and that these roughly correlate to social identity groups, mostly due to causal chains related to historic or ongoing oppression like bigotry and disenfranchisement, such that straight cis white American-born males are generally playing on "Easiest" whereas someone like a gay trans Middle Eastern-born woman might be said to be playing on "Hardest", or something like that.

The way I see it, there's also a hidden "Developer" mode available to an ever-narrowing few. Far easier than even the public "Easiest" modes, the ones who get to play on this mode can rewrite the rules of the game as they see fit and therefore do whatever they want. Since this is an open-world survival game where everyone plays on the same server, there are limited resources available to all, and so the Developers naturally have an advantage over all the other players on the server. Indeed, the reason the game is getting harder and harder for the other players is because of the rules the Developers get to write for themselves.

Your propositions would result in ever-more stratified levels of difficulty while continuing to increase the overall difficulty level across the board. The Developers get to continue playing Developer mode. They get to keep being the big club George Carlin described, the one that gets all the good land, all the good resources. They own the game. They own the players. They own the world.

My proposition? Break the game. Deliver the promise of actual democracy and freedom from economic oppression.

Open Developer mode to all.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Still finding it hilariously ironic how intent everyone here seems to be on bullying me into silence.

But free speech for Nazis, yeah.

Oh, and how dare you oppress me with your political correct demands that I not say anything that make you uncomfortable.

TopHatFox
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by TopHatFox »

Silence? No way man!

Write away~ There's a famous quote by Voltaire I like. : )

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Maybe I misunderstood then. What was the purpose of your comments? What did Jenny Penny say that you agree with?

BRUTE
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by BRUTE »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:09 pm
Open Developer mode to all.
well, at least Spartan_Warrior and brute now agree on what would be nice, and are acknowledging the other's good intentions.

the implementation details seem to need some working out ;)

frankly, the only alternatives to capitalism that brute has seen historically are far worse: fascism, communism, socialism. not every human is a winner in capitalism, but in other systems, almost every human is a loser. the 1% vs. 99% rhetoric used against capitalism by some humans applies 100x more to any alternative system. at least the 99% in capitalism drive Honda Accords, own smartphones, and flat screen television. the 99% in communism are waiting in line for bread and heat their homes with furniture.

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C40
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by C40 »

You guys are getting into some interesting and thought-provoking posts.

I don't know or think much about these things so I don't have any substance to add. Just a couple thoughts

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:09 pm
Going back to the game metaphor to conclude my own counter-pitch: I've established that there are different difficulty modes to the game and that these roughly correlate to social identity groups, mostly due to causal chains related to historic or ongoing oppression like bigotry and disenfranchisement, such that straight cis white American-born males are generally playing on "Easiest" whereas someone like a gay trans Middle Eastern-born woman might be said to be playing on "Hardest", or something like that.
It totally depends on how you're judging these things, but on those two scales I looked up, Asian Americans are playing on "easiest", and whites second easiest. Another candidate for hardest difficulty would be a child born in a North Korean labor camp. Now, that's an interesting thing, given that a some of those Asian American's playing on easy mode in the U.S. are children of South Koreans - and - the same exact race/ethnicity.

I do definitely think that "easy mode" is about more than just having two parents who earn a lot. I had a close Vietnamese/Mexican friend in the midwest US. In a city of nearly all white people, he got the short end of the stick on dating/sex (most young white women don't dig asian guys). I believe he had more fair luck when he moved to California, but, not much more. But... another guy we knew who lived in the same midwestern city, who I think is Vietnamese, seemed to have absolutely no shortage of white women whether he was in the midwest or in San Francisco.

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:09 pm
My proposition? Break the game. Deliver the promise of actual democracy and freedom from economic oppression.

Open Developer mode to all.
But... damn-it, I just spent the last 30 years playing the game, and I won. I don't wanna have to start over in a new one. (says the guy who won on an easy mode)

One related thing I remember a friend and I reassuring each-other about, was, more or less: "it doesn't matter if things get all switched around, if the government or rules change drastically. You and I will still be able to figure out a way to win." Maybe that means we (think we are) developers.

TopHatFox
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by TopHatFox »

@C40: It means we have the ability to think critically and optimize while in different systems. More importantly, we also have the discipline and support systems to follow through!

Campitor
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Campitor »

Open Developer mode for all wouldn't work for one simple reason - humans are imperfect and their behaviors spread along a curve. Once upon a time the world was "Open Developer mode" but it didn't stay that way for long. Because some people used their Open Developer mode to create systems and devices that were superior to the developer down the road. This allowed the creative developer to flourish in ways that the other developer didn't foresee or had the capacity to emulate - we know how the story goes from there - the Earth was bloody and dangerous. Despite all the rhetoric and conflict in today's world, the planet is a better place than any other time in history with capitalistic systems increasing the standard of living of its citizens.

Corporations are necessary evils because some endeavors are too large and require the concerted effort of large groups working in coordination. And large amounts of resources are needed to implement these large efforts. Who determines which effort is worthy of more resources? Which agency determines how many people should work on a project? Which agency would certify that person X has the knowledge and skill to work on Y project to determine its success? And would these skilled people even put forth the effort since they already got paid? Capitalism is the necessary evil that direct these decisions in the least oppressive way because of the inherent incentives on behavior. Resources are finite and if they don't have a cost associated with them, they will be over exploited and used in the least efficient way. If you make a lousy battery and someone makes a better battery, who will be responsible to tell you that your wasting earth's resources on a product that is crappy? At least in capitalism, the bad battery wouldn't sell and force it's manufacturer to make a better battery or close down which would free up inputs that would have gone to a lousy product.

And the reason the wage payer gets a greater portion of the spoils because he undertakes the larger share of risk when he creates his company - he has to make payroll, pay vendors, pay payroll tax, invest money into maintaining infrastructure, etc. If it was so easy, every worker in the world would quit his job and start a business and become his own boss. The world is getting more complex and is requiring a surge in creativity and intelligence that most people don't want to cultivate. Some folks create Facebook and other just stare at it all day. Some guys design and build motorcycles and others spend all their money driving them around with the best chrome their limited money can buy.

Open Developer mode will be more of the same - some guys will rock on Open Developer mode and others wouldn't know what to do with it. The promise of paradise via Open Developer mode is a pipe dream.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Brute:

I don't know how deeply I want to get into this argument as it seems to be getting into the weeds from the original topic, but it seems like most people think the whole conversation is just stinking up the joint anyway, so I guess I'll go where it takes us.

I'll start by acknowledging that both libertarianism and socialism are idealized systems. It's not so much about implementing either of them in full so much as what direction we want to move toward along a (variety of) spectrum(s). I would also contend that we are far closer to a libertarian model than a socialist one at the moment, and have been drifting further that direction since at least the 70s.

Attempts at true socialism/communism* internationally have also always been the target of retaliation by the US and other capitalist nations, either through war and open violence (Vietnam, Korea, etc) or cold wars and devastating sanctions (USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, etc) or CIA-sponsored coups (Thailand, Guatemala, etc). Claiming that socialism failed in these circumstances is akin to watching someone sabotage the Wright Brothers' plane over and over again and concluding man will never fly.

*Distinct from social democracies in the European style that we commonly think of as "socialist" but are really capitalist with expanded social safety nets/welfare systems.

I'll also add that what we know about the successes or failures of socialist nations is almost exclusively filtered through media in pro-capitalist nations. This requires no great conspiracy; most people in the US and among our close allies are pro-capitalism. Capitalism, after all, is as American as apple pie. Moreover, most of our traditional media is filtered through big corporations owned by wealthy capitalists. There is also some evidence to suggest that our intelligence agencies and military manipulate available information to control the narrative to one that is pro-America (and thus pro-capitalism), even down to Hollywood movies.

For instance, we've all heard about the bread lines and shortages (hm, what was that about US-sponsored economic sanctions on these countries that really only target the poor...?), but how many know about Cuba's treatment for lung cancer available to all through universal health care, or their 99% literacy rate through free education from elementary school to university?


@C40:

"It totally depends on how you're judging these things, but on those two scales I looked up, Asian Americans are playing on "easiest", and whites second easiest."

That's a good point. Yeah, it's interesting how Asian Americans have a definite history of oppression, beginning with brutal railway labor through things like the Japanese internment camps of WWII, yet they come out on top in a lot of socioeconomic scales.

Strangely enough, white supremacists don't really seem to target them(?). You'd think they'd want to target the ones that were actually getting ahead of them...?


"But... damn-it, I just spent the last 30 years playing the game, and I won. I don't wanna have to start over in a new one."

Interestingly, the average wealth in the US is something like 380k, which seems like a pretty average ERE nugget. Even with something as fanciful as a full redistribution of wealth, ERErs don't really lose.

And that thing about the ability to adapt to any system sounds like something I once said. I agree, if you are smart enough to ERE, you are probably smart enough to thrive in most any system.

I don't know that I consider ERErs Developers, more like video game wizards. :b

Or, what Olaz said.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Campitor:

"Despite all the rhetoric and conflict in today's world, the planet is a better place than any other time in history with capitalistic systems increasing the standard of living of its citizens."

Capitalism is useful in lifting up the standard of living through the industrial and technological revolutions. But is it still the most useful system? Is it still increasing the standard of living for the majority or is it now standing in the way and posing more harm than good through factors like pollution? What happens when we run out of nations of poor people with cheap labor to exploit to keep the whole thing running?

"Who determines which effort is worthy of more resources?"

People decide what they want to work on and work on it.

"Which agency determines how many people should work on a project? Which agency would certify that person X has the knowledge and skill to work on Y project to determine its success?"

Perhaps something like worker-elected councils of peers could run the business. Or they could have business managers who run things, they just don't get paid disproportionately more for the work, because the work of managers doesn't contribute disproportionately more.

"And would these skilled people even put forth the effort since they already got paid?"

We're on an ERE forum, for crying out loud. Is payment the only motivation to do something? Look how much effort I'm putting forward in something I chose to put it into. Something meaningful to me. I assure you I'm not being paid for this...

You seem to be arguing also that capitalism is more efficient in producing better products. I don't see how it is inherently so. OTOH, capitalism leads to tremendous waste in resources with two or more competing firms developing nearly identical products, oftentimes leading to one company going under and all their products filling a landmine anyway.

"And the reason the wage payer gets a greater portion of the spoils because he undertakes the larger share of risk..."

What risk? Is that like the risk the Wall Street banks took in the 2008 crash? Or the risk the auto company execs took when they got bailed out? Or the risks Donald Trump took when all his businesses crashed and burned and he still walked away with billions?

Again, when you make the rules, you don't have risks.

"If it was so easy, every worker in the world would quit his job and start a business and become his own boss."

If only they all had the capital to do so.

"Open Developer mode will be more of the same - some guys will rock on Open Developer mode and others wouldn't know what to do with it."

Certainly, but it would also be fair, and the ones who don't rock wouldn't necessarily have to starve.

Campitor
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Campitor »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:59 pm

Capitalism is useful in lifting up the standard of living through the industrial and technological revolutions. But is it still the most useful system? Is it still increasing the standard of living for the majority or is it now standing in the way and posing more harm than good through factors like pollution? What happens when we run out of nations of poor people with cheap labor to exploit to keep the whole thing running?
People who have maximum/minimum pay will still pollute but now they may even pollute more because everything is free including the inputs (gas/oil/carbon) that turn into smog, C02,etc.

People decide what they want to work on and work on it.
People already have the freedom to decide what they want to work on - Open Developer Mode wouldn't be providing anything new in this regard.

Perhaps something like worker-elected councils of peers could run the business. Or they could have business managers who run things, they just don't get paid disproportionately more for the work, because the work of managers doesn't contribute disproportionately more.
I've managed people - its a lot harder than it looks. I took a cut in pay because the headaches of management wasn't worth the increase in money. And others may take the job because of the power it gives them over people. Different system, same problems.
We're on an ERE forum, for crying out loud. Is payment the only motivation to do something? Look how much effort I'm putting forward in something I chose to put it into. Something meaningful to me. I assure you I'm not being paid for this...
And we're free to spam our ideas as much as we want because Jacob isn't charging us anything to do it - imagine if you had to pay a dollar per word - would you post as much? Now extrapolate that thought to finite resources and free money.
You seem to be arguing also that capitalism is more efficient in producing better products. I don't see how it is inherently so. OTOH, capitalism leads to tremendous waste in resources with two or more competing firms developing nearly identical products, oftentimes leading to one company going under and all their products filling a landmine anyway.

I'm not arguing that its the most efficient but rather the least inefficient. Of course there is waste because us humans are imperfect therefore we're incapable of being 100% efficient regardless the underlying economic system - capitalism just happens to be the best model AT THE MOMENT because of the inherent checks of the market. Two business can create the same product because there is a market for it otherwise it would never happen. The market (a.k.a. the people) decided that two business are needed because they are spending money on the product - it's democracy in action - exchanging your labor (a.k.a. money) on something you deem worthy.
What risk? Is that like the risk the Wall Street banks took in the 2008 crash? Or the risk the auto company execs took when they got bailed out? Or the risks Donald Trump took when all his businesses crashed and burned and he still walked away with billions?

Again, when you make the rules, you don't have risks.


Most business in the USA are small business and can hardly afford to buy politicians therefore they don't make the rules. So yes - most business are taking risks so they deserve a greater reward to incentivize them to start business so they can employ more people. As long as there is government (a necessary evil) there will always be those who benefit to a greater degree via quid-pro-quo deals to corrupt politicians. So the best solution, since Government has no competitors, is to limit the size of government to limit the amount of cronyism that can exist.

If only they all had the capital to do so.
Most businesses are started with borrowed money which requires someone with extra cash to hand it out (someone who has more money than he needs). The business owner put himself at risk by borrowing the money needed to start the business and he is on the hook to repay that money regardless of success or failure therefore he deserves to be compensated for this extra risk.
"Open Developer mode will be more of the same - some guys will rock on Open Developer mode and others wouldn't know what to do with it."

Certainly, but it would also be fair, and the ones who don't rock wouldn't necessarily have to starve.
People aren't starving now (at least in the USA with the 1.3 trillion spent on social welfare) but yet here we are listening to people rant about the white boogie-man and the unfair distribution of wealth. Do you really think that the lack-lust developer is going to be happy when he sees the other guy living a better life because he happens to be more skillful? Envy is the greatest evil on this planet and will not disappear just because we switch to "Open Developer Mode".

BRUTE
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by BRUTE »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:59 pm
Capitalism is useful in lifting up the standard of living through the industrial and technological revolutions. But is it still the most useful system?
capitalism is merely allocating resources, time, and attention according to a market based, decentralized pricing system, as opposed to a central plan developed by {soviets,mandarins,the Fuhrer,god}.

if Spartan_Warrior comes up with a better system of allocating resources, there's a Nobel price with his name on it.

BRUTE
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by BRUTE »

Campitor wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:10 pm
government (a necessary evil)
citation needed
Campitor wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:10 pm
People aren't starving now (at least in the USA with the 1.3 trillion spent on social welfare) but yet here we are listening to people rant about the white boogie-man and the unfair distribution of wealth.
brute has seen multiple homeless humans with better smartphones than brute owns.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Campitor:

"People who have maximum/minimum pay will still pollute but now they may even pollute more because everything is free including the inputs (gas/oil/carbon) that turn into smog, C02,etc."

I didn't say everything was free, and don't see why it would be necessary to abolish currency as a store of value, at least not as any kind of immediate step. IMO, certain services like health care, education, internet and utilities, and other essential needs for public health and productivity should be free to individual use, but not necessarily every industrial commodity. Most pollution is from industry and agriculture AFAIK. Sorry, I'm writing in something of a hurry. There are many other ways than pollution that capitalism does harm and misallocates resources. And by pollution I meant more like "overproduction". It was just an example.

"People already have the freedom to decide what they want to work on "

To some extent... although it seems most must choose what they do on the basis of its economic value. For endeavors like art and music, for instance, it's very difficult or impossible for workers of average skill in the field to make a living. But anyway, my point here was that it would be little different from now, actually.

"I've managed people - its a lot harder than it looks. I took a cut in pay because the headaches of management wasn't worth the increase in money. And others may take the job because of the power it gives them over people. Different system, same problems."

Managing people and leading organizations is indeed harder than it looks, but does that role contribute more to finished products than any other? How much more? Twice more? Three times more? 800 times more? Likewise, you avoided it for the headaches, but for the right kind of extrovert, management jobs are fun and rewarding in and of themselves and are what they'd prefer to do. And indeed, while some may take the job because it gives them power, if workplaces were more democratic systems, workers could fire or demote bosses who are only in it for control or otherwise fail miserably at the job. (As opposed to now, when the highest paid workers get golden parachutes when they screw up.)

"And we're free to spam our ideas as much as we want because Jacob isn't charging us anything to do it - imagine if you had to pay a dollar per word - would you post as much? Now extrapolate that thought to finite resources and free money."

Again, internet access should definitely be publicly run and free to all. A privatized internet with everyone paying a dollar per word sounds more like a libertarian thing to me...

"exchanging your labor (a.k.a. money) on something you deem worthy."

What happens as labor becomes increasingly worthless in light of automation and AI? Should the many continue to work harder for less and less, while the few enjoy more and more convenience? What happens as technology brings us to the point of eliminating the majority of jobs requiring human effort at all? Or do you think none of this is likely in the future?

"Most business in the USA are small business and can hardly afford to buy politicians therefore they don't make the rules."

Yes, many of them are skilled craftsman and trade laborers like plumbers and tree cutters and door installers. Instead of being able to collaborate, which is human nature, capitalism forces them into artificial competition against one another, and against huge conglomerates of concentrated capital like Home Depot, which is definitely more powerful than they are.

" So yes - most business are taking risks so they deserve a greater reward to incentivize them to start business so they can employ more people."

But in a system of equal ownership the workers would equally share the risks and liabilities of the business. There is no need to worry about the disproportionate risks of the noble capitalists compared to their workers. They would be one and the same.

"Most businesses are started with borrowed money which requires someone with extra cash to hand it out (someone who has more money than he needs)."

If the average person has to borrow capital from those who already have it, what makes that system preferential at all? I understand how the system of lending works; indeed, it's one of the major mechanisms by which capital reinforces itself and concentrates. We all know the power of compound interest. Lending and its risks by and large wouldn't be necessary if capital weren't distributed in such an undemocratic way in the first place such that "someone who has more money than he needs" is in the position to make even more money off someone who needs it.

"People aren't starving now (at least in the USA with the 1.3 trillion spent on social welfare)"

False. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in ... ted_States
"Research from the USDA found that 14.9% of American households were food insecure during at least some of 2011, with 5.7% suffering from very low food security.[3] Journalists and charity workers have reported further increased demand for emergency food aid during 2012 and 2013. The United States produces far more food than it needs for domestic consumption - hunger within the U.S. is caused by some Americans having insufficient money to buy food for themselves or their families. Additional causes of hunger and food insecurity include neighborhood deprivation and agricultural policy"
Emphasis mine. About that "least inefficient distribution of resources" thing...

"Do you really think that the lack-lust developer is going to be happy when he sees the other guy living a better life because he happens to be more skillful? Envy is the greatest evil on this planet and will not disappear just because we switch to "Open Developer Mode"."

Okay, so what are we talking about, here? Back to the root of the thread, what's causing the rise in white supremacy? I thought we had moved toward concluding that it has something to do with white males feeling left behind in society economically. If everything's fine economically, what's the cause?

Is it really just as simple as envy? If so, what are white males envious of toward non-whites? Unless they're Chinese, it can't be their socioeconomic outcomes.

@Brute:

Either a Nobel prize, or suicide by two bullets to the back of the head.

"brute has seen multiple homeless humans with better smartphones than brute owns"

Hey C40, you homeless chap... you got a cell phone?

Smartphones seem pretty essential for connectivity especially without a house to place other belongings. They are also not even expensive. Is the implication that a homeless person should be able to afford a home or food if only they saved that $40/month?

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: White supremacy run amok

Post by Campitor »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:49 pm

I didn't say everything was free, and don't see why it would be necessary to abolish currency as a store of value, at least not as any kind of immediate step. IMO, certain services like health care, education, internet and utilities, and other essential needs for public health and productivity should be free to individual use, but not necessarily every industrial commodity. Most pollution is from industry and agriculture AFAIK. Sorry, I'm writing in something of a hurry. There are many other ways than pollution that capitalism does harm and misallocates resources. And by pollution I meant more like "overproduction". It was just an example.
Overproduction is inherent in any system including Open Developer mode, the reason being that humans despite having access to the information needed, or because of lack of any information, will duplicate effort. Give people free money and they will be more likely to continue in duplication of effort because you will have removed the market feedback that would inform them that their labor or goods aren't needed or desired.
To some extent... although it seems most must choose what they do on the basis of its economic value. For endeavors like art and music, for instance, it's very difficult or impossible for workers of average skill in the field to make a living. But anyway, my point here was that it would be little different from now, actually.
Not sure but I think we are in agreement? Regardless the economic system, there will be people who will seek to optimize the benefits and returns allowed. This optimization will lead to disparity. Capitalism provides incentives for those who have optimized resources to share them in exchange for something of value.
Managing people and leading organizations is indeed harder than it looks, but does that role contribute more to finished products than any other? How much more? Twice more? Three times more? 800 times more? Likewise, you avoided it for the headaches, but for the right kind of extrovert, management jobs are fun and rewarding in and of themselves and are what they'd prefer to do. And indeed, while some may take the job because it gives them power, if workplaces were more democratic systems, workers could fire or demote bosses who are only in it for control or otherwise fail miserably at the job. (As opposed to now, when the highest paid workers get golden parachutes when they screw up.)
Managers are a finite resource and in a system of minimum/maximum wages, there would be very little incentives to take the needed but very difficult management roles required to run a very complex society. Your proposed system would leave many rudderless because humans behave very inefficiently and OFTEN want someone of leadership to take over because they lack the desire or ability to do so. My employers have tried to entice me back into management but I refused because the money I would earn wasn't equal to the difficulty of the task. And the difficulty increases as you move up in management. The most difficult and sensitive of management jobs get golden parachutes because the fallout for failure is high - only by offering golden parachutes will people take these types of jobs.
Again, internet access should definitely be publicly run and free to all. A privatized internet with everyone paying a dollar per word sounds more like a libertarian thing to me...
The internet isn't free nor will it ever be because its energy needs and its infrastructure are vast. And you missed the point - my comment wasn't about having a free internet but rather how a service or good that is provided for free will be over utilized because there are no incentives to stop its overuse.
What happens as labor becomes increasingly worthless in light of automation and AI? Should the many continue to work harder for less and less, while the few enjoy more and more convenience? What happens as technology brings us to the point of eliminating the majority of jobs requiring human effort at all? Or do you think none of this is likely in the future?
Do you think that in Open Developer mode that there will not be people trying to invent newer and better automation? Automatiion isn't an effort isolated to Capitalism only. Humans have been trying to automate for centuries, windmills, water wheels, etc. Despite automation, there will be people who will take advantage of automation to enhance their lives, invent newer things, or use automation in ways unforeseen by most of society. Envy will rear its evil head with people hating these creative people and complaining that they should derive benefits from these creative people's effort without having to pay for it or work for it.
Yes, many of them are skilled craftsman and trade laborers like plumbers and tree cutters and door installers. Instead of being able to collaborate, which is human nature, capitalism forces them into artificial competition against one another, and against huge conglomerates of concentrated capital like Home Depot, which is definitely more powerful than they are.

" So yes - most business are taking risks so they deserve a greater reward to incentivize them to start business so they can employ more people."

But in a system of equal ownership the workers would equally share the risks and liabilities of the business. There is no need to worry about the disproportionate risks of the noble capitalists compared to their workers. They would be one and the same.
Capitalism doesn't force them into competition - they chose to compete for the potential to keep most of the profit generated by their activity. Human cooperation is difficult because we all don't agree how things should be done or where efforts need to be expended. Many do collaborate and form corporations or limited partnerships in order to enjoy the benefits of shared labor and capital - employees take advantage of this by offering their labor in exchange for money - employees are still free to leave and start their own business but many don't want to take the risk.

If the average person has to borrow capital from those who already have it, what makes that system preferential at all? I understand how the system of lending works; indeed, it's one of the major mechanisms by which capital reinforces itself and concentrates. We all know the power of compound interest. Lending and its risks by and large wouldn't be necessary if capital weren't distributed in such an undemocratic way in the first place such that "someone who has more money than he needs" is in the position to make even more money off someone who needs it.
Capital needs to concentrate because there are required ventures so complex and so large that only a large amount of available capital can seed its creation. And what makes the system of borrowing capital preferential is it allows people to start business quicker who would otherwise need to wait decades to save the required amount of money.

False. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in ... ted_States
"Research from the USDA found that 14.9% of American households were food insecure during at least some of 2011, with 5.7% suffering from very low food security.[3] Journalists and charity workers have reported further increased demand for emergency food aid during 2012 and 2013. The United States produces far more food than it needs for domestic consumption - hunger within the U.S. is caused by some Americans having insufficient money to buy food for themselves or their families. Additional causes of hunger and food insecurity include neighborhood deprivation and agricultural policy"
Emphasis mine. About that "least inefficient distribution of resources" thing...
I can't comment on this until I've read the underlying sources used in this wiki and the methodology used.

Okay, so what are we talking about, here? Back to the root of the thread, what's causing the rise in white supremacy? I thought we had moved toward concluding that it has something to do with white males feeling left behind in society economically. If everything's fine economically, what's the cause?

Is it really just as simple as envy? If so, what are white males envious of toward non-whites? Unless they're Chinese, it can't be their socioeconomic outcomes.
Envy and fear is the root cause for extremism. The white devil narrative exists because white people in the USA happen to be the biggest group here and are statistically present in most jobs including those at the top. But don't worry - us Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the US population and pretty soon we will be discussing the Hispanic Devil being the root of socioeconomic imbalance. I believe some have already gotten a head start on this. :D
Either a Nobel prize, or suicide by two bullets to the back of the head.
Agreed - humans behave suboptimally even when presented with a better choice - this is the root of wars, poverty, envy, and fear.

"brute has seen multiple homeless humans with better smartphones than brute owns"

Hey C40, you homeless chap... you got a cell phone?

Smartphones seem pretty essential for connectivity especially without a house to place other belongings. They are also not even expensive. Is the implication that a homeless person should be able to afford a home or food if only they saved that $40/month?
The implication is that they value a $40 dollar a month device over spending it on something that could help their homelessness (food, clothes, books). Smart phones may be cheap but dumb phones are even cheaper by a large degree - those $40/month could be $10/month. What other suboptimal choices are they making that could be robbing them of the potential to improve their lives incrementally? Thank goodness for the generosity of America and its rich people:

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