Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

Also different: This is a global crisis created by something out of our control. the '08 one was causing by profiteering cunts.
 
I'd say it was aided and abetted by the Chinese government doing what they usually do by punishing whistleblowers and ignoring early warnings.
 
Who decides degrees of evil vs degrees of personal good?

In a democracy?

Don't worry you get what you deserve. In the case of Georgia they voted for a guy who thought this was the appropriate image for a responsible gun owner, threatening the life of others. What do you know hes now threatening the lives of all of us by poor decisions because; he didn't know about asymptomatic infection, just like he doesn't see the problem with opening up the beaches despite Florida's very visible numbers. Hey go out and be an individual there is no reason to think of the greater good.

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I'm going to say it here because the Covid19 page should be about current events surrounding the crisis. Or as Republicans should call it the democrat hoax. Any time that Trump quote is repeated Republicans say that we need to blindly follow the President because he's doing his best and now's not the time for politics. Fuck that! In the long list scams, business failures, bankruptcies, scandals, failed policy... the contribution to this disaster stands out.

Call it political but calling out a Governor for only learning of asymptomatic transmission after weeks of it being in the news, even after the president had talked about the fact... Yes!, Brian Kemp is a Republican and he's an IDIOT. It contributed to deaths. The buck stops at the executive and the executive was a Republican. He deserves to be called out and Trump deserves to be called out. You don't think it's the time for politics then don't run for office because the job is 24/7 365 and you don't get a pass because the jobs hard!
 
Thanks to Momentum57 for showing me that we could bring this conversation to a more appropriate thread.

Collectivism often hides a lack of ability to care for others.

I have not talked about "collectivism". If that Strawman was any bigger, it could walk around with a lion, a tin man and a little girl from Kansas.

I think there is a difunctional, very limited, black and white vision of life if everything that is not what the US are doing now means autoritarian or totalitarian communism.

You can't even answer that question for yourself and yet you want it to be legislated. All of the ideas you have espoused on these boards over the years are exactly what was attempted in USSR and other similar regimes, we all know how they all turned out.

I can: in any exchange, it is quite clear what is individualistic behaviour and what is selfishness, if you compare the gain for one person to the cost for the other and you put it into perspective with the free will of the two.

For example: building the best sanitary/protective equipment there is in order to be able to sell it with a higher profit while still offering the best cost/opportunity ratio to the buyer is individualism; selling sanitary/protective equipment to the highest bidder State in a global Pandemic to get more money is selfish.

But it is difficult to explain such nuances when everything criticizing the US way is painted as sovietic.

Every single living creature is selfish, that is the basic tenet of evolution.

Mankind has five major evolutionary advantages that helped them survive, grow, thrive:
1)the intelligence to understand the environment they are in and foresee the effects of their actions (intelligence) 2)the ability to manipulate the environment around them in order to adapt it to their own projects (opposing thumb) 3)the ability to trasmit knowledge from one individual to another and from one generation to the next (culture) 4)the ability to adapt to many different kinds of environments and living conditions (diet and activity, and with the help of the other characteristics, climate, lifestyle, situations), and often times to do it fast (adaptability) 5)the ability to cooperate with other people and care for one another, boosting the survival chances of everyone; men can cooperate with massive amounts of other individuals, even unknown ones, for long period of times and on very complex tasks (cooperation).

Individualism is not one of those 5 characteristics. Even "The Free Market" in its most purest, theoretical and idealized form is an act of cooperation: no "purely individualistic" entity would give away something that is already owned, to get something else from another individual, if the same thing could simply be taken forcibly, or stolen later, or was strictly not necessary in the moment. No purely individualistic individual would even think of a "fair price" on what is sold, or to get more of what is easy for them in order to sell to more people and get more things back. Yet, peaceful exchanges are the norm.

Even clearer than those examples, no purely individualistic entity would ever think of something like "money", and give away something of physical value for something of no physical value on the sole premise that this would be accepted back from others in exchange from different items of physical values. Trust is an act of cooperation, not of individualism.

While cooperation and individualism both exist as inner pushes in human beings, the strongest component of the evolutionary success of human beings is cooperation, not individualism.
 
In a democracy?

Don't worry you get what you deserve. In the case of Georgia they voted for a guy who thought this was the appropriate image for a responsible gun owner, threatening the life of others. What do you know hes now threatening the lives of all of us by poor decisions because; he didn't know about asymptomatic infection, just like he doesn't see the problem with opening up the beaches despite Florida's very visible numbers. Hey go out and be an individual there is no reason to think of the greater good.

Jake_Campaign_Ad.jpg

Part of the way that Kemp got elected was by being in a position that allowed him to purge minority voters from the voter rolls.
 
I'm partisan I'm a Democrat who's run Republican campaigns, owns a gun, and believes in the constitution.

I'm having a real issue with people claiming to be non-partisan independents who really cant sort wheat from chaff.

Example:

Oklahoma !!!

The Oklahoma governor still hasn't enacted a stay at home order but he did order some businesses closed after weeks of no response at all. The attack on his lack of protective gear was to illustrate his lack of seriousness.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52177125
I know nothing about this guy, but the linked article looks like partisan garbage.

The governor seems to be wearing the same level of protection as the medical staff.

And yes, all leaders go to disaster areas to see what is going on. It's a sign of leadership.

Now is not the time for divisive politics. Look outside of your political tribe. Political tribalism is a luxury for times of peace and calm.

Granted the Twitter source was partisan. But again beyond the lack of personal protecting the Gov. has been slow to act. But ignore that because we're not supposed to be partisan.


I noted the Twitter handle belongs to a conservative radio show

I'm not sure how the messenger's personality relates to the message?

So partisan thus bad though the Gov. is a dip yet ok that it's from a conservative radio show even though the person's good intention

Or...here's a better idea. You don't respond to it like I did my parents when they denied me that second ice cream (or channeling LeVeL, whichever you prefer), try and look at it from a non-political perspective (literally every reply after the first one has either "republican" "the president" or "Trump"), and gain the ability to call out nonsense from all sides, political and apolitical. It's better, it creates reasoned discourse.

Though I suppose that would involve effort, and force you to consider things beyond your personal feelings and biases towards media, the administration, and everyone supporting or condemning it. I personally believe this is a fair trade-off for a more complete view of the landscape, but you may feel different about it.

Calls me a child. (Also attacks LeVeL which I don't know why he was brought into it whom I've agreed with on occasion so maybe he's hoping we'll Avengers assemble into a partisan super group)

It's being able to separate wheat Gov and a President not doing enough and not trying vs chaff OMG in that interview her mask slipped and working on legislation and making efforts.
 
Firstly, this is a belief, not a fact. Secondly, I consider this belief to be profundly wrong.

BUT thirdly, this has nothing to do with covid-19, not even with politics, but with political theory. Which I am very willing to discuss but not in this thread.

Belgium has a large government in the view of American definitions. Belgium had what was believed to be the longest period in which a developed country has been without an elected government of 589 days.

They didn't fall into anarchy
 
They didn't fall into anarchy

Sidenote:
I would appreciate if people stopped using "Anarchy" as a synonym for a state of disorder but one can only dream. :p
 
To be fair, you can put a lot of explosives in a 28ish foot boat. IIRC, the boat used in the USS Cole attack was even smaller.
 
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True; we have concerns, it's not like we haven't committed acts of war against them.
 
Raise multiple generations of people by trying to sell whatever sh*t you think it's best for yourself, even by manipulating them or telling them evident lies, do not educate them to critical thinking because it's more lucrative and easier to tell them stories, and sooner or later you will have to deal with the COST of that stupid behaviour; a cost that you denied to try to justify your newly-acquired money, that you tried to externalize to someone else; but it's there. Now it bites back.


BTW, those idiots exist everywhere. In Italy, they are either very right-wing conservatives, both poor or affluent, or very left-wing conspiracy theorists. In the US, though, there seem to be a bigger number of people affected by this problem.
 
This is the list of grievances that the "Colorado Freedom Force" aka loons protesting to "Get America Open" are hoping to solve by getting more people infected. I mean none of it says shit about health other than they don't want health coverage and only want abstinence only education... I guess the gas one is health after the industry blew up a bunch of residential houses and killed some people

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Word is he has a sister.
 
Small foreword: I don't think there is ground to open a new thread, so I just answer here instead of the Covid-19 thread.

Consider moving this conversation somewhere else?

On that, as usual, important modifications to our lives and worldwide crises bring the topic on political and economical organization. Always on the crisis-specific threads... :D However, you are right in pointing out it has to be moved elsewhere, as always.

The conversation about economical systems is lovely and I wish to see if it reaches a compromise, an agreement to disagree, if someone brings up that that big advantage is also a disadvantage when you get to really high amounts of reward, or if it devolves into namecalling and shitfling.

I am sure willing to try and find a dialogue, but I don't think a rewarding (or even acceptable, in some cases) compromise is actually reachable. After many years, things are still more or less at the starting point.

Basically I point out at the blatant shortcomings of the system we use and that many calls "capitalism", but should actually have a different names given how many declinations it may take, and I basically say: these problems have to be addresses.

The answer, basically, is that Capitalism(tm) is a sort of totemic god that grants us prosperity and abundance and you should not take the name of Capitalism in vain. Like all the problems it bring, like all the recurring crises, all the poverty, all the injustices, all the corruption and cheatings of the basic rules of the market itself that we can all see before our eyes everyday were either invented or were the fault of some isolated "bad guy" who break the rules.

Then I say: how can people become rich and powerful by breaking the rules, if the system is perfect? How can people cotinuously be exploited (in many ways) if the system is perfect? And the answer is... to blame some -limited, never systemic- problem.

It is ingrained that "capitalism=what we have=the best of the bestest". But that is religious-like thinking. Also, and this is particularly true with american commenters: there seem to be no alternative to monolithic, god-like, all-mighty and all-good Capitalism, except for evil, failure-ridden, inferior, monolithic communism in its most vicious soviet forms. Nothing else. Then you can see answers like Argatoga's on Capitalism being "human nature"... Come on...

Really, no land in between. I am almost tented to take it as the joke it resembles and to say I am for the one and only Emperor (of the Holy Roman Empire, of course) and that feudalism under the divine protection the Roman Catholic church is the best way to give a king and a God to the plebs (seriously, these guys entered the elections here, and they got some votes! They even have a hymn in the form of a nice metal song! :ROFLMAO:)

You are correct. However, it is the closer to the basic primitive instinct of "do thing, get reward". Carrot and stick, bell and saliva, take your pic.

It is. What I say is: it is not enough. Following just instinct brings us to the problems I listed before; cyclically, continuously, inescapably. It is time to try to address the issues that bring us all there all the time. And I don't start with any pre-defined solutions or slogan word or fanatical ideology "clearly better" than others. Because the problems are complex and complicated on multiple levels.

Still, hitting similar crises to those who marked the human population since at least the bronze age, and saying everything is fine and the best there is is really a stupid move, in my view.

Societies have existed (and exist, to a lesser extent) who were organized differently. They had lights and shadows: we should learn how to get the lights and avoid the shadows.

Basically, my thoughts revolve around three main thoughts.

1)Wealth is not a fixed quantity, and it does not depend on resources alone. A basic ground of available and valuable resources are organized in a specific manner that make them fruitful. Wealth is resources times organization. The wealth level of a society is mostly an organizational equilibrium that the society is able to keep. For this reason, wealth is not "produced", wealth is "increased": when the society is able to reach and maintain a higher level of organizational complexity, wealth grows.

On a personal level, wealth is not increased by simply "getting rich", because you can become rich by depleting one or more resources or by stealing; rather it is increased when personal work modify the organizational structure towards a more functional balance. Wealth is only increased by three means: with our minds, to understand what to do; with our hands, to learn how to do it; with our time, that we actually use to do it.

We should reward these things, not something else. If someone gets rich while doing nothing, that is taking away from wealth, not adding up to it. If someone gets rich by depleting a resource or by exploiting someone else's work, or by controlling a resource and selling it a enormously high prices, that is taking away from wealth, not adding up to it.

The amount of people taking away more than they contribute is staggering, and some of them are revered as great people. This shows things could be better.

Also, capital is a resource, like all the others.

2) market is not "the answer"; market is a human behaviour, a mechanistic -cooperation- strategy veined with individualism (yes, market is -cooperation-, not competition). It works on a balance of conditions and realations and it needs a "fertile ground" of social and practical conditions to really shine and bring wealth and growth. The more you get imbalances and disfunctions and blocks, the less it works. If the conditions are wrong, it can turn into a destructive force, an exploiting tool. It is much definitely not a balncing factor itself (it's not the "benevolent god" of the ideologues)

3) Being humans, we tend to overdo (or underdo) things, until the system is not balanced anymore and we get a crisis. This is cyclical and stupidly wasteful. We know it will happen, we should take the necessary precautions to avoid or limit the deep destructive plunges that are bound to happen.

The idea that we have to crash down and start over from time to time is time- and resource-consuming, and given the timespan of those things, if you live during the downward phase, chances are you won't live enough to get to the next peak, even if you survive the crash.

So, let's not be stupid, let's work together to make the lives of everyone better, and to free time for them to try to get us all to an higher and better level of organizational complexity.

The "individualism is the only way" is the lie selfish people tell you to get your things when they are stronger and exploit you when they need you.

So basically what humans have been doing since cave times more or less...

Shouldn't we be evolve a little, then, instead of repeating the same errors over and over and over?
 
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It is ingrained that "capitalism=what we have=the best of the bestest". But that is religious-like thinking. Also, and this is particularly true with american commenters: there seem to be no alternative to monolithic, god-like, all-mighty and all-good Capitalism, except for evil, failure-ridden, inferior, monolithic communism in its most vicious soviet forms. Nothing else.

You're not wrong even if a government program is socialist we can always rebrand it. Like Catholics with Christmas pagan beginnings we can absorb it's essence make it our own.

The "individualism is the only way" is the lie selfish people tell you to get your things when they are stronger and exploit you when they need you.

Americans see themselves as rich, if temporarily short on funds, hence raising taxes might hurt them when they get the billions they truly are worth. And once they have their billions they will pull up the ladders they climbed to protect themselves from the poors taking what's theirs. Nobody does it all alone but won't admit we didn't build the roads.

Shouldn't we be evolve a little, then, instead of repeating the same errors over and over and over?

No, I used to say Americans don't do anything till it's a crisis. Now I say Americans don't do anything. America is a failed state. I'd pay more in taxes but it's not asked of me so I watch children die and masturbate to the decadence we live in.
 

A couple of thoughts about your post. I see your points, and I agree that the system must constantly evolve to better serve the people within it. Unfortunately, the attempts that have been done to evolve the economic system has failed spectacularly, presicely because it centers around fixing the problems of human thinking instead of working alongside them, and they die as a result.

(I am not an economist, and even if I were one I would be mediocre at best. Read the next sections accordingly)

The centralized (command) economy fails precisely because it is centered. You get the state (not necessarily, but it always seems to swing that way when transitioning from paper to real life) and all its assorted bureaucracy taking however long it will take to make market decisions. And whenever this has been tried, it ends with destroyed livelihoods (The state has decided you are to stop producing food and should now make steel. Good luck and best wishes from the party), a vast black market (a parallel anarchist economy, in itself with massive issues as humans are terrible at self-regulation and collectivist thinking), and massive corruption (All the production decisions go through the state, I know exactly where to go to make a quick buck.)

A Socialist economy (traditional socialist, not the new definition that seems to be "left of Pinochet" as much as conservative means "right of Marx") has different, but related issues. The rejection of capital and removal of labor beyond whatever the collective is willing to do will inevitably leave gaps in supply. This is before we reach the question of the competency of the workers at managing those means of production they seized, as well as how willing they are to pool together for improvements. You will also need to have a ruling body (remember, we suck at self-management). Be careful now, give them too much power and it's just a centralized economy.

Now, another argument you hear against capitalism is that all other countries who tried and failed at a different economic system did so because the wrong people are in charge...And that's precisely the point. Any economic system which requires members within it to be incorruptible belongs only on a piece of paper.

Capitalism is awful, it tends towards oligarchy, it creates duplication of efforts, it hinges on pitting people against one another to amass the biggest pile of shiny rocks. However, it is the most fault-tolerant of the economic systems tried so far. Precisely because its faults align with our faults. Competition causes people to want to figure out new ways to do things better, faster, more efficiently. Society as a whole benefits from this and the people at the helm of the groups that do this. The State is there just to keep this competition from getting out of hand and try and maintain a level playing field in as much as it can be done without giving an "Unfair" (I made it this far before using a term that can be contested philosophically) advantage to either party. This is the bit that is failing. and It's not economical but political in nature. You can make a credible argument that the issue is rather not capitalism, but regulatory capture. That goes into politics and how to make them more robust against this. This is another conversation.

I also have an issue with If someone gets rich by depleting a resource or by exploiting someone else's work, or by controlling a resource and selling it a enormously high prices, that is taking away from wealth, not adding up to it. You need resources to create goods, this includes human resources that would otherwise not be part of labor and get a share of it (conversations about the fairness of their share are another matter). If the market has a need for that resource and can pay for it, it will absorb it. Ideally, it should look for alternatives (it's up to the regulatory bodies to prevent monopolies and regulate markets with inelastic demand. Again, regulatory capture).

Sorry for the wall of text. It will probably get many corrections, but I feel like this should be a more reasoned version of why capitalism is as celebrated as it is. Not coming from someone who froths at the mouth and rubs themselves when they imagine a Laissez-faire approach to regulation

@Momentum57 . Two brief comments about your post

1) It seems to imply you would prefer an America where everyone stays on their lane and knew their place, which is more or less when they are born from a societal/economic perspective. Either that or it belittles aspirationalism. This is disgusting to me and it reminds me a bit too much of historical figures who used same language to keep marginalized populations marginalized. The quote is attributed to Roland Wright, who on the same book he wrote this tried to argue that us evolving the ability to hunt was a mistake.
2) The fact that you think America is a failed state tells me that you have no idea what a failed state is.
 
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