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View Poll Results: Do you like socialism? (explain reasons in thread)
Yes 17 58.62%
No 11 37.93%
I'm confused 1 3.45%
Voters: 29. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-18-2015, 10:54 AM   #51 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Briks View Post
Ja, and most of those who defend capitalism seem to be from America. And?
Thats the question
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Old 02-18-2015, 11:13 AM   #52 (permalink)
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i'm american and i think capitalism is bound to destroy the planet. this is why robots need to take over tbh

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Old 02-18-2015, 11:24 AM   #53 (permalink)
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Wealth inequality in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The rich just keep getting richer.

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Corresponding to financial resources, the wealthy strategically organize their money so that it will produce profit. Affluent people are more likely to allocate their money to financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and other investments which hold the possibility of capital appreciation. Those who are not wealthy are more likely to have their money in savings accounts and home ownership. This difference comprises the largest reason for the continuation of wealth inequality in America: the rich are accumulating more assets while the middle and working classes are just getting by. Currently, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States while the bottom 90% held 73% of all debt. According to the New York Times, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent"
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Old 02-18-2015, 11:29 AM   #54 (permalink)
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i'm american and i think capitalism is bound to destroy the planet. this is why robots need to take over tbh
Robots I'm down with. Do all the work so I can play video games while getting blow jobs from robo-skanks.

But capitalism is just a necessary quasi-evil. Like I said about ground-level capitalism vs. multi-national corporations: one is great while the other is a danger to be monitored like a hawk. But corporations are still the only thing that makes a functioning economy possible (as opposed to bartering and pure communism). They may be turning the world into their own private ATM, and I can see a day in the far future when a person's affiliation to their all-powerful employer trumps trumps their loyalty to their country,and the Pepsi/Coke wars turning into armed conflicts, but it is what it is.

Countries are already arbitrary concepts based on arbitrary lines on a map, so is it really so odd to have your loyalty lie with the person who signs your checks and provides you with health and dental care? If I had a choice BTW, I'd be a citizen of the Marvel-DC Empire (They'd unite in order to make Justice League/Avengers crossovers and destroy the Confederacy of Independent Comic Publishers [which would be de facto ruled by Image].)
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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Old 02-18-2015, 11:40 AM   #55 (permalink)
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Robots I'm down with. Do all the work so I can play video games while getting blow jobs from robo-skanks.
see, the difference between what you're saying and what i'm saying is you're picturing a world where we rule over robots to make our lives better. i'm picturing a world where robots supersede us and carry the torch

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But capitalism is just a necessary quasi-evil. Like I said about ground-level capitalism vs. multi-national corporations: one is great while the other is a danger to be monitored like a hawk. But corporations are still the only thing that makes a functioning economy possible (as opposed to bartering and pure communism). They may be turning the world into their own private ATM, and I can see a day in the far future when a person's affiliation to their all-powerful employer trumps trumps their loyalty to their country,and the Pepsi/Coke wars turning into armed conflicts, but it is what it is.

Countries are already arbitrary concepts based on arbitrary lines on a map, so is it really so odd to have your loyalty lie with the person who signs your checks and provides you with health and dental care? If I had a choice BTW, I'd be a citizen of the Marvel-DC Empire (They'd unite in order to make Justice League/Avengers crossovers and destroy the Confederacy of Independent Comic Publishers [which would be de facto ruled by Image].)
i don't really see any honest difference between pure capitalism and corporate cronyism. even when businesses adopt state coercion as one of their tools of competition. i think if you honestly look at the idea of 'open competition' and bring it to its logical conclusion then these become imaginary lines in the sand with no real substance.

which is all well and good, if you are ideologically partial to that sort of thing. but i don't see it ending well.
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Old 02-18-2015, 12:05 PM   #56 (permalink)
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i'm american and i think capitalism is bound to destroy the planet. this is why robots need to take over tbh
Absolutely.

But of course it's rampant capitalism that will get us to the point where that becomes an option. It's rampant capitalism that produces the Googles, SpaceXs, Boston Dynamics', and Microsofts that invent the technologies capable of automating large and complex functions of social systems. The interesting thing about the future possibility of primarily automated social systems is that it very well could be inevitable, we may subconsciously push ourselves into that world. Inventors more often than not have no idea that their invention will have the impact that it does. Arthur Scherbius, the inventor of the Enigma Machine, a communications security device, had no idea he was initiating the evolution of personal computers, he was just earning a paycheck and trying to help his country. Robert H. Goddard didn't know he was ushering in the birth of the Space Age when he invented early liquid-fueled rockets.

Once these devices are invented and become public their evolution is no longer controlled by purpose or intent. You end up with a hive of engineers, technicians, and developers simultaneously swarming the device, modifying it this way and that way, and its future impact becomes entirely unpredictable, the competitive tech industry subconsciously pushes it forward to serve a much larger purpose. And seeing as the vague primary goal of all technological evolution is to automate and simplify processes that were previously done manually, all technology inevitably pushes us further towards automated society.

Capitalism will force itself into obsolescence.
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There's 3 reason why the Rolling Stones are better. I'm going to list them here. 1. Jimi Hendrix from Rolling Stones was a better guitarist then Jimmy Page 2. The bassist from Rolling Stones isn't dead 3. Rolling Stobes wrote Stairway to Heaven and The Ocean so we all know they are superior here.
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Old 02-18-2015, 12:17 PM   #57 (permalink)
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see, the difference between what you're saying and what i'm saying is you're picturing a world where we rule over robots to make our lives better. i'm picturing a world where robots supersede us and carry the torch
The only way to make that preferable is if the machines have no preference to whether or not we exist or the nature of their actions (i.e. no true artificial intelligence), so even if our autonomy was given over to the machines, we'd still have decided what form their authority would take. And robo-sluts are clearly something we would account for.

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i don't really see any honest difference between pure capitalism and corporate cronyism. even when businesses adopt state coercion as one of their tools of competition. i think if you honestly look at the idea of 'open competition' and bring it to its logical conclusion then these become imaginary lines in the sand with no real substance.

which is all well and good, if you are ideologically partial to that sort of thing. but i don't see it ending well.
I don't see a difference either. Corporations are on a steady path to greater political power, which will eventually lead to a full-fledged de facto corporate oligarchy rather than just the ambiguous, symbiotic, economic/political relationship we now have. I'm just saying that it's inevitable, so I accept the possibility since there doesn't seem to be a better option.

It's not like politicians these days are necessarily any better. Sure we can vote them out of office, but in the meantime their incompetence and inability to accomplish anything due to partisan nonsense makes them next to useless, and the situation only seems to be getting worse. Maybe our corporate overlords won't be as subject to the wishes of the public, but at least they might be competent enough to offset the loss in democratic power.
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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Old 02-18-2015, 01:09 PM   #58 (permalink)
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I don't mind communism/socialism based on what little I know about it. I'm not striving to be rich and I have small attainable goals that even a lower-middle class salary can afford. Aside from having money to travel one day, I don't have any expensive hobbies or interests, and as it is I work harder than my coworkers for less money so at least all the lazy assholes won't be making more than me.

If technology never improved beyond it's current state I would be content living out the rest of my life, so all the creativity that Capitalism creates isn't that important. Also, I'm a fan of doing things yourself over automation (generally speaking), so fuck the robots.

I'm sure the future has a lot of wonderful things to bring but I'm happy not progressing as a species. I don't like us all that much.

Life goals: Woman, House, Garden, Education, Video Games/Computer stuff, Car, Food, and Travel.
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I'd vote for Trump

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Old 02-18-2015, 02:18 PM   #59 (permalink)
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But Mars.
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Old 02-18-2015, 06:36 PM   #60 (permalink)
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The only way to make that preferable is if the machines have no preference to whether or not we exist or the nature of their actions (i.e. no true artificial intelligence), so even if our autonomy was given over to the machines, we'd still have decided what form their authority would take. And robo-sluts are clearly something we would account for.
least they might be competent enough to offset the loss in democratic power.
i disagree.. i'm not sure how you reached this conclusion but it seems like a false dilemma to me. if we design AI to learn from its environment and make decisions there is nothing in the information given in that scenario alone that necessarily dictates what its ultimate attitude towards humanity will turn out to be. it seems reasonable to me to suppose that like any other intelligent entity it would be mostly self-interested


worth watching if you're ever bored enough to dedicate an hour or so to this sort of thing
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