Grrl Power #1250 – Orderly friday
Gellen is supposed to look like a (very tall, buff) yaoi pretty boy, but man, I am not practiced at drawing that.
I’ve talked extensively about money in a post scarcity society, and generally came to the conclusion that the only things that would be of value would be information, energy and probably time. Something that takes the same amount of energy to create on the matter replicator but takes longer to form because of… delicate molecular lattices or some other science words, would be more expensive because of the opportunity cost. So yeah, time would probably be a factor.
However, since buying groceries with a thumbstick that has the 3D model of a ’92 VW Bug transmission on it, or handing over a brace of D-Cell batteries probably wouldn’t really be viable as currency for a number of reasons. So really, a post scarcity society would probably still have money, but it would be imaginary money like any country that’s moved past the gold standard uses.
Nothing has value unless people agree it does. When the 2008 toxic CDO’s and CDS’s blew up the economy, it’s not like any dollar bills or gold doubloons burned up in a fire or anything. Some numbers on a lot of computers went down, and we all “agreed” that it was bad. Honestly I’m not really sure why instead of bailouts, the government didn’t just go, “Look, this one time, you can type a few extra zeros back in.” Besides setting a terrible precedent, obviously. More terrible than bailing out billion dollar banks and not even breaking them up into smaller institutions and implementing a bunch of regulation, I mean.
But my point is that despite “money” having no real place in a post-scarcity society, I think it would still unfortunately be kind of a necessity. Otherwise, wouldn’t everyone be like Scotty and have a boat? If it truly cost nothing to have a boat because “cost” is a depreciated concept, it seems like most people would keep a pretty nice boat around, just in case they decided they wanted to spend the afternoon lounging on the deck of a boat. But… where would they keep them? I guess if money really was no object, then you could build massive underground boat garages and you could retrieve it by pushing A27 like you’re getting a Zagnut bar out of the vending machine. Well, presumably, engineers would have better things to do than to build boat garages for 380 million boats, so, money.
As far as Scotty “buying” a boat… Honestly, there’s three ways to look at it. 1) In the Federation, you can just Matter up a boat, and what Sydney said is true, that he was using holdover slang. 2) The other, more likely explanation was that the writers didn’t know/care about the Federation supposedly being post scarcity. 3) The other other explanation is that they did, but they didn’t have a graceful way to have the line “I just replicated a 40 meter schooner.” without making their test audiences go, “Uh, what?” So they sighed a heavy sigh and changed the dialog to lowest common denominator for brevity’s sake, even though they wrote a really deep in the weeds 17 pages of dialog between Scotty and the whale doctor lady from Star Trek 4 who was at that meeting for some reason, but the real reason was so she could act as the audience exposition surrogate when she asks Scotty to review the finer points of 24th century economics with her. Because I definitely would have written that, then gotten all sullen when the studio execs were like, “What the fuck are you writing about? You turned in a 1,500 page screenplay! Cut 93% of it!”
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
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Oh, goodie!
We’re going to have _ALL_ the arguments today! X’D
*queue’s up The Internationale and sets up the popcorn buffet*
Bonus points if you manage to trigger both the lefties and righties.
Hold my beer.
*inhales*
“Monarcho-Socialism is a viable socioeconomic structure.”
Laughs in British.
Oh I will *not* fall for this one
I’ll bite, in a sense.
ALL socioeconomic structures are viable. Even the stupid ones. The core question in any socioeconomic structure, underlying all other is “do we want to work together?” and humans are too soft and weak to survive on their own, so by our very nature as hypersocial squishy naked weaklings the answer will always be “yes”. At worst it would be a “yes, but…”
The whole “Well, I worked harder than that guy, so I should get more [pay, goods, rations, whatever of value]” nature of humans is baked in by evolution. Humans have learned cooperation, but it only goes so far. This is one reason that every utopian economic system that comes along, on the right or the left, promises to change the very nature of human beings. The New Soviet Man!, The Aryan!, The Great Leap Forward!.
So yes, all socioeconomic systems are viable, the question is how much force are you prepared to bring to bear to maintain it and for how long?
“The New Soviet Man!, The Aryan!, The Great Leap Forward!. ”
Those were all on the left. Got any examples from the right? Serious question, as I would think you are correct, but I’m not thinking of any off the top of my head.
“all socioeconomic systems are viable”
Depends on your goals, I suppose. Socialism is a GREAT system if you’re the dictator at the top – it’s dictatorship with *much much much* better PR. If the welfare of the people is your goal, not so much……
Yeah, if you think Nazis were on the left, there is no right. Also, since socialism is defined by the *popular* control of the means of production, any system with a dictator cannot be socialist.
“Yeah, if you think Nazis were on the left, there is no right.”
Nazis are “on the right” the way the least-morbidly-obese person at the beginning of a season of Biggest Loser is “thin”.
The guy who *CREATED* fascism said specifically that it was a form of socialism. It was “national socialism”, as opposed to “international socialism”, a common name for communism.
Fascism is a form of socialism, specifically the “least left-wing” form. As such, in Europe during the 30s, when every country in Europe was going socialist, it was “right wing” in comparison.
Even the US today, with all the trappings of socialism that we have taken up, is still well to the right of the Nazis in terms of governmental structure.
“Also, since socialism is defined by the *popular* control of the means of production, any system with a dictator cannot be socialist.”
Woohoo, No True Scotsman! That’s the second one in the thread already.
Quick, name be 3 socialist countries that were not ruled by a dictator! tick tick tick tick tick tick… ding!
The closest I can come up with would be China directly before Xi came to power, but that’s only because it was an oligarchy instead of a dictatorship.
The Scandinavian countries are not socialist (ASK THEM!). They have a very high tax rate, and the do have socialized medicine, but otherwise, they are less socialist than the US (again, ASK THEM – every time I’ve heard it come up with them, the individuals in question are clearly very tired being thought of by ignorant Americans as “socialist”).
Yes, Naziism was called “National Socialism”. Guess what? East Germany was called the “German Democratic Republic” Do you believe it was any of those things besides German?
“Do you believe it was any of those things besides German?”
I don’t believe any of them just because they say. I check what they DO.
And what the Nazis did was take complete control of corporations (and even wealthy individuals’ property). They let the people that owned them still nominally own them – that’s why differentiated fascism from other forms of socialism.
Maybe the Scandinavian counties resist the label of socialism because people on the right have so thoroughly vilified it, making it extremely difficult to have any kind of reasonable discussion about feasible alternatives to capitalism.
No, they resist it because they aren’t socialist by nearly any definition.
They do have a socialized medicine. That’s it. This (and the generous safety net) result in high taxation.
But otherwise, they are a normal, capitalist society. The “means of production” belong to specific individuals (or corporations with shareholders, which isn’t really much different), not to “the people”, for only the most commonly mentioned thing on this thread.
Now, now, don’t let facts get in the way of a ideological narrative.
In fairness to the chuds, however, the reason they always assume that ‘soshulizum’ means dictatorship, is that they literally can’t think in anything but hierarchical terms. In their minds, the idea that there must always be someone lording it over others is a kind of natural law. So, they just assume everyone else works the same way.
Innuendo Studios over on youtube does a _really_ good job of covering this in his “Alt-Right Playbook” series. I absolutely recommend. Makes this stuff _super_ transparent, and much easier to counter.
“In fairness to the chuds, however, the reason they always assume that ‘soshulizum’ means dictatorship, is that they literally can’t think in anything but hierarchical terms. ”
OK, name me some socialist countries didn’t have a dictator at the top.
I get that you don’t actually want to look at facts, because flinging insults at people who actually think about this stuff is so much easier and thinking is hard, but actual facts don’t care about your opinion.
I would LIKE a world where there isn’t someone “lording it over” other people. Not only can I think of it, I actively WANT it.
As such, I actively try to avoid socialism, because that what it becomes in extremely short order every time. It’s also why I want a weaker federal government, for pretty much the same reasons.
But sure, dismiss me as a “chud”, whatever that is. Wouldn’t want to muddy up that pure, grade A BS filling your head with any icky “facts”.
Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, several others, all feature public-owned natural resources, high taxes, and very good social security networks (universal healthcare, child care, welfare, etc.). All of those policies would be shouted down as “socialist” if they were proposed in the USA. They are considered to be “socialist” countries by everyone who isn’t trying to claim that socialism = the USSR or China.
Still waiting on you to define ‘socialism.’
I’m not here to play fashy rhetorical games. If you can’t demonstrate you understand the terminology and theory, you’re not worth wasting my time on.
“Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, several others, all feature public-owned natural resources, high taxes, and very good social security networks ”
They also claim (with some pretty strong reasons) that they are definitely NOT SOCIALIST, and the every one I have seen or heard expound expressed some level of annoyance at the continuing usage of such.
They do indeed have socialized medicine and a very generous social safety net, and at least the medicine part would indeed to be called socialist in the US (because it is!), but in several measures, the US is more socialist than they are (government control over private business, among others).
It is telling that the primary example given for “successful” socialist countries do not consider themselves socialist (and with good reasons as to why).
I have said for some years that a wealthy country like the US could indeed afford a little bit of socialism, and that we might even be better off for it……. but in practice, it is very difficult to keep it from being a “camel’s nose in the tent” sort of thing.
Though I suppose, the Scandanavian countries have managed it for a good while now… so that’s unexpectedly nice.
Slippery slope fallacy.
America.
“Slippery slope fallacy.”
Some slopes are, in fact, slippery. The fallacy is assuming ALL slopes are slippery.
Constructing examples where the position in the middle is the LEAST popular is actually really easy. Position A: we have chili for dinner. Position B: we have pizza for dinner. Position C: we have a small serving of pizza with a small serving of chili on it.
But we can also look at real-world examples where, even when the middle position is the most popular, any movement at all tends to cause a run in that direction.
Easy example: Abortion.
The majority opinion in the US, as shown by every opinion poll even today, is some level of restriction on abortion, but usually fairly early (just like most of Europe has, for instance), say “first trimester” or so (which is one reason why Roe v Wade managed to last as long as it did, even though the reasoning of the decision was pretty obvious BS that sidestepped the whole point of contention on the debate).
But that position is unstable. One side of extremists pushes for complete ban, the other side of extremists pushes for complete lack of restriction.
As such, there are factions *actively greasing the slope*. The slope is slippery.
Gun rights and gun control suffers from a similar problem. With actual examples from our history, people who want gun rights are unwilling to compromise, because they know (from both statements in public and private AND from long track record) that there are people actively greasing the slope who will not be satisfied with anything less than a full ban. No compromise will result in a stable situation.
(Your or my opinion on those contentious issues is irrelevant, by the way – not trying to advocate for any one position, only using them as examples.)
You are a good example of those who would “grease the slope” for socialism.
Of course Socialism and Communism are on the left, but Fascism is a more complicated question, which is not surprising since it was historically explicitly designed as a “Third Way” (Mussolini’s words) that was neither socialism or capitalism.
But an example of the right completely ignoring human nature is easy. “Oh, we don’t need any regulations. Businesses wouldn’t hurt the environment or screw people over just make a couple of extra bucks, right?” Anarcho-Capitalists that think government is completely useless and we don’t need any regulation of business practices are just as ignorant of human nature in their own way as socialists thinking that if only a bureaucratic elite controlled the economy we would all live in utopia.
“Anarcho-Capitalists that think government is completely useless and we don’t need any regulation of business practices are just as ignorant of human nature in their own way as socialists thinking that if only a bureaucratic elite controlled the economy we would all live in utopia.”
Not a bad example, thanks.
I would point out that “anarchists” are not remotely all (or even majority) “anarcho capitalists”, though the media often tries to lump them together.
I would also point out that the number of anarcho-capitalists is tiny, and that they have never, to my knowledge, actually attempted to implement their insanity on a national scale like the lefty utopians, but yes, thank you for pointing them out. I do like to stay as balanced as possible.
Here, some more quotes from Mussolini on fascism, communism, and socialism more generally:
“You cannot get rid of me because I am and always will be a socialist.” Mussolini: A Biography (1983) p. 8
“Tomorrow, Fascists and communists, both persecuted by the police, may arrive at an agreement, sinking their differences until the time comes to share the spoils. I realise that though there are no political affinities between us, there are plenty of intellectual affinities. Like them, we believe in the necessity for a centralised and unitary state, imposing an iron discipline on everyone, but with the difference that they reach this conclusion through the idea of class, we through the idea of the nation.” The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, page 494
“Some still ask of us: what do you want? We answer with three words that summon up our entire program. Here they are…Italy, Republic, Socialization. . .Socialization is no other than the implantation of Italian Socialism… ” Revolutionary Fascism
And here’s one from about a month before he died:
“For this I have been and am a socialist. The accusation of inconsistency has no foundation. My conduct has always been straight in the sense of looking at the substance of things and not to the form. I adapted socialisticamente to reality. As the evolution of society belied many of the prophecies of Marx, the true socialism folded from possible to probable. The only feasible socialism socialisticamente is corporatism, confluence, balance and justice interests compared to the collective interest.” Testamento di Benito Mussolini
Mussolini himself clearly considered fascism as a form of socialism. *Politically*, he was opposed to communism, and he was very nationalistic, but he was definitely a socialist and considered fascism as a form of socialism.
Basically, it’s a form of socialism where the corporation still exists… it’s just entirely beholden to the state. That’s what the Nazis implemented, as well – you still formally owned your company, but you couldn’t actually DO anything with that ownership except what the government told you to do.
So you think Mussolini was always scrupulously honest in his political messaging?
So, basically, any attempt to tar socialism with the actions of actual socialists will be met with “well, they weren’t REALLY socialists”?
He consistently claimed to be a socialist for the last 3+ decades of his life. He was a member of socialist groups, though he did vehemently disagree with *communists* and other “international” socialists because he was an extreme nationalist (which got him kicked out of some groups).
Hitler quotes below.
“Socialism! What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism.”
“I shall take socialism away from the socialists.”
“Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism.”
“We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists.”
“My aim from the first was a thousand times higher than becoming a minister. I wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism.”
Control language, and you control people. Throughout history, people have found that redefining words makes it very difficult to discuss ideas they would like to suppress, and easier to change how people think.
Nice Hitler quotes. Which part of them says that fascism isn’t socialism? Which “socialists” will he “take socialism away” from? (Hint: the primary socialist group he was opposing was the communists.)
“Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism.”
Again, what does this mean? Without more context, which group is he condemning as “disguising itself as socialist”?
“I wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism.”
Which he says, right above, isn’t socialism…
So we invent all kinds of rationale for why the guy doing the least amount of work, contributing the least to society, deserves to control others and reap the majority of the rewards. Like monarchy or capitalism.
Any system will work, as long as the people involved want it to work, and are willing to ignore the system whenever it would lead to failure. The measure of a system then, is how well it continues to work under adversarial pressure.
Everybody is equal, but some people are more equal than others. – Napoleon Bonaparte
(I’m kidding; it’s actually George Orwell.)
On the subject of viable socioeconomic systems, I recommend “Why Nations Fail”, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2021).
I tend to think the writers were just a bit embarrassed at TNG’s whole “The Federation doesn’t have money” silliness, and were trying to walk it back. Remember, TOS absolutely had money, (Sure, you didn’t see it much on the Enterprise, but the Enterprise was a military ship, on a mission, you don’t have much cause to visit the bursar under such circumstances. But it showed up all the time when on shore leave and interacting with non-military.) and TNG isn’t THAT long after; Money disappeared in under a century? Yeah, right.
There’s always scarcity. Unique works of art, personal services, particularly desirable locations. And you need some way to allocate it. Money is really good for that.
Kirk has two lines in ST4 that they no longer use money in the 23rd century…
And when Berman took over, he immediately set about reintroducing capitalism into Star Trek because, in his own words, “He doesn’t believe in the Star Trek vision of the future.”
Can’t have the little people getting any ideas about changing the status quo, now can we?
“Can’t have the little people getting any ideas about changing the status quo, now can we?”
Considering that every attempt at socialism has still had money (see the last line of Brett’s comment for why), and that even those relatively tame attempts at socialism still had body counts with many zeros, avoiding a more serious attempt at socialism (which would have an even higher body count than usual) is a good thing.
Define ‘socialism,’ first.
I’m not going to play semantic or other rhetorical games.
If you don’t actually know what the words mean, you aren’t worth wasting my time on.
OK. This is a practical definition, based on looking at states that declare themselves socialist in any form:
Highly authoritarian monarchy with “divine right of kings” replaced with “in the name of The People(tm)” and “king/emperor/czar” replaced with “President/Premier/Comrade”. Also, succession is not *usually* by bloodline. Otherwise, fits pretty well.
So, that would include mainland China, the USSR, Venezuela, North Korea, Vietnam (though you don’t hear about them much anymore… they really seem to be the sleeper success story, relatively speaking), Cuba, etc.
Your turn. Definition, plus countries that have actually met that definition or at least come vaguely close.
(Hint: the Scandinavian countries are really tired of ignorant English speakers using them as examples of socialism, since they aren’t socialist and will tell you so, rather firmly, if asked.)
You think socialism is monarchy.
Thank you for demonstrating that you don’t know wtaf you’re talking about, and in arguably the most “Socialism Understander” way possible.
No.
Socialism is an economic system which puts the ownership of the mean of production in the hands of those people who are actually using it to do the value creating work, much in the vein of a worker-owned co-op. At its core, it’s about property rights, and specifically about who owns the value created by labor.
And now I’m done wasting time on someone who cannot be f’ed to do the most _basic_ gd homework, and instead falls back on lazy, disproven Cold War propaganda, gaslighting, and “vibes.”
Done now.
I said: “Your turn. Definition, plus countries that have actually met that definition or at least come vaguely close.”
You gave a silly definition of something that has NEVER existed at any scale, along with no list of countries (which makes sense, since there haven’t been any).
“At its core, it’s about property rights, and specifically about who owns the value created by labor.”
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! Congratulations on recognizing *something* related to reality!
The problem you ignore is that “The People” own nothing in any socialist system. “The PARTY” owns everything “in the name of” the people. That’s what happens everywhere it is actually attempted. (Well, in fascism, they let you keep your name on it, you just don’t get to make any of the decisions on what to do with it.)
And “the Party” is then run by (in nearly every case) a single man with functionally absolute power. A king in all but name. Heck, in many cases, MORE powerful than most historical kings (who were restrained by the politics and obligations of feudalism).
“Done now.”
Done? You didn’t even start! You regurgitated boring agitprop BS with no relation to anything that has actually happened in the real world. As best I can tell, you haven’t bothered having a single thought of your own.
For instance, when “the people” own those “means of production”, who decides how they will get used? Or, when it’s “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”, who decides what people “need” and what “ability” they have?
THAT is the failure point of socialism. That is why it always devolves almost instantly into dictatorship.
That’s also why it is inherently authoritarian. Leaving “the people” to each decide for themselves results in the vast majority of people having a lot of “needs” and very little “ability”. Then there is no stuff, and you get mass starvation (like actually happened in several socialist countries).
And that is why capitalism actually gives people the freedoms and prosperity that it does – they are *actually* free to decide for themselves what they “need” and what their “ability” is in relation to that. Want to work some minimal job as little possible? If you’re content with living super cheap, feel free! No one will make you work more.
You defined socialism as monarchy.
You clearly do not have the first idea what socialism actually is, I gave the actual, working, academically accepted definition, and I’m going to waste further time playing chess with a pigeon.
No, you don’t have an answer, so you beg off.
Just like everywhere else in this thread. All theoretical BS, all the time.
Where does the house come from? Name one country that is “socialist” based on your definition.
Until you can do even ONE of those, you are arguing in bad faith, repeating arguments that you think make you sound… compassionate? Smart? Hip? But that actually result in the murder of millions.
So if we haven’t already tried it, it can’t exist? If you restrict the discussion only to systems that have been tried, and insist on tying any new prospective system to something from the past, of course you’re not going to find anything better. You’ve excluded anything better from discussion before it even begins!
“So if we haven’t already tried it, it can’t exist?”
I’m not the one saying it hasn’t been tried. I think socialism has been tried A LOT.
And it results in autocratic tyranny, every time.
I think “dictatorship” doesn’t really get the idea across – there are and have been plenty of boring “dictatorships” that made no pretensions. Saddam Hussein or Kadhaffi, for easy examples. “I have the all the dudes with guns, so you will do what I say, or I will kill you.”
But socialist dictators dress themselves up in these glorious pretensions… “in the name of the people”. That’s why I think “monarchy” captures it better – just plain “dictators” are a bit more honest in their tyrannical rule, but kings, emperors, and the Dear Leader dress up their tyranny with big fancy language and special outfits. “Divine right of kings”, or “the Mandate of Heaven”…. or “In the name of The People(tm)”.
Bharda is the one seemingly claiming it hasn’t been tried. I can’t get her to name a single country that is actually “socialist”, by her definition.
Whether anyone has “really” tried it or not, a whole lot of people certainly were *intending* to try it, and the results were body counts with 6 or even 7 zeros on the end, so I would advocate that we no longer *attempt* to try socialism. Seems pretty reasonable to me, based on the actual, consistent, and repeated results.
How do you think democracies work, if “the people” are incapable of making collective, non-destructive decisions?
I think you’ve grazed the thing, there.
He _doesn’t_ think that we’re able to manage ourselves, and we must need a hierarchical master to rule over us for our own good.
“He _doesn’t_ think that we’re able to manage ourselves, and we must need a hierarchical master to rule over us for our own good.”
I have, several times in this very thread, explicitly stated that such is not what I want, and that part of the reason I want to avoid socialism is because attempts at socialism result in tyrannical masters.
I have even stated that I would prefer a weaker federal government in the US to avoid having such masters.
But judging by what you have demonstrated in this thread, your rhetorical toolbox has “academic theory with no grounding in realism” and “dishonest strawman”, so I shouldn’t be surprised when you keep using the latter against me.
I am for people managing themselves FAR MORE than they are currently allowed to by the US government, and certainly more than any government in Europe allows at the moment.
Somehow, in your mind, that means I want people to be ruled by “hierachical masters”… Are you literally incapable of comprehending that someone who disagrees with you isn’t just a very specific kind of evil? Or maybe you just need some remedial reading comprehension instruction?
We tried a weak federal government before.
It didn’t work.
What you’re really upset about is that said government isn’t enforcing your particular set of priorities and values. I can certainly empathize with that; I’m not happy my taxes being used to support the murder of children, and general genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza, or Biden’s failure to uphold the supremacy clause on the national border, where the neo-Confederate Greg Abbott has been interfering with federal responsibilities, or the way Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas refuses to recuse himself from cases involving his wife, who helped to plan and perpetrate the attempted January 6th insurrection.
But you don’t see me out here calling for the dismantling of the federal government over it, do you?
“We tried a weak federal government before.
It didn’t work.”
We tried an extremely weak federal government, and it indeed did not work. That was over 200 years ago.
Then we tried a federal government that was strong at an extremely limited number of things, and that worked fairly well, most of the time, for about 150 years (though the Civil War was in there, a result of a strong federal government, even if I do agree that slavery was a very bad thing worth fighting against).
Since about the New Deal or so, we have been ramping up the power of the federal government to MUCH MUCH higher levels, allowing it to get into ever more minute and private portions of our lives.
But hey, the only possible “weaker” federal government I could POSSIBLY want is the Articles of Confederation or the “the dismantling of the federal government”, right? Right?!?
Yet another dishonest strawman from Bharda. No surprise there.
“Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas”
Yay, gross and despicable racism from a lefty. Must be a day that ends in ‘y’.
“general genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza”
Israel is the worst genocider in the history of genociding. They have had the means to wipe out every last man, woman, and child for decades, and yet, somehow, the number of Palestinians has increased literally every year for decades. Yep, “genocide”! You are so very, very unserious about…. well, basically anything, as best I can tell.
Even taking the **blatantly dishonest** Palestinian numbers as God’s own truth, the civilian casualties in the largely urban warfare going on in Gaza are ***UNBELIEVABLY** low in comparison to every other urban warfare situation in the world since (and definitely including) WWII.
And you, naive know-nothing that you are, eat up those numbers and think they are somehow indicative of genocide. By that standard, every country that has engaged in urban warfare on any scale in the last 80 years is guilty of genocide.
It makes the charge completely meaningless and spits in the faces of groups that have actually been subjected to attempts at genocide.
It does more to excuse actual attempts at genocide than it condemns Israel. But then, considering you are taking the side of the publicly, *openly*, **PROUDLY** genocidal Palestinians, I guess that shouldn’t be surprising.
“insurrection”
OK, I was wrong. I thought I knew how deeply unserious you were before, but clearly, I was had no idea.
I probably need to go slap myself for being surprised by this. Someone who advocates for socialism, blindly accepting the claims made by the central government despite all evidence of their own eyes? Mangling words to make something subject to 2 Minutes of Hate seem worse and every actual instance of said thing seem lesser by comparison?
CHAZ/CHOP, where they literally declared themselves no longer part of the US, that’s fine.
Trying to quick-crete the doors of a federal courthouse closed and then burn it down? No biggy.
Literally the largest riots in the history of the US, with dozens killed and BILLIONS in property damage (even accounting for inflation, the most damaging riots in US history, by a large margin)? “Firey but mostly peaceful”
No, no, the problem is a group of unarmed people of who were let in by the police, walked politely through the velvet ropes, took pictures and left.
Or maybe, it’s the people who, during that same event, were led by federal agents dressed a Trump supporters (the security video those them in the building, talking with the cops, BEFORE any breaches or doors being opened, so go ahead, tell me to believe the friendly government over my own lying eyes) to go a few places and commit some minor theft – that’s commonly referred to as “entrapment”.
I am fully in support of anyone who was in on the brawling with the cops outside being fairly prosecuted (as long as it’s ALL of them, not cherry picking). Who broke the windows? I’m for them going being fairly and openly prosecuted, too.
But when there are literally no firearms in use or even brandished the whole time, when literally NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON has been charged with “insurrection” after what the FBI itself called the “largest investigation in their history”, calling it “insurrection” is utterly and completely dishonest, the single most unserious thing you’ve done so far on this thread, which is really, REALLY saying something.
Wow.
Okay, you…you are clearly completely divorced from reality.
People died on J6, and you want to kvetch about property damage? You think socialism is monarchy, the Israelis are ‘defending themselves’ by butchering thousands of children with an AI weapons system that specifically targets residences, homelessness is solved by criminalizing poverty, fascism/Nazism are leftist ideologies, and subscribe to Q anon conspiracies.
You are beyond reason, beyond rationality, and imo, beyond hope. Maybe someday someone will get through to you, deprogram you, but it won’t be me, and I’m good with that.
“A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.”
You can have whatever last word. I’m out.
“People died on J6”
Apparently, you can’t read. LOTS MORE “people died” in the Burn Loot Murder riots, and there were deliberate attempts to block people in buildings and burn them down.
And the people who “died” on J6? Heart attack, stroke, beaten to death by police (including more beating while already unconscious – go watch the video if you have the stomach), and shot by police at point blank range without any warning at all.
“subscribe to Q anon conspiracies”
I don’t even know what “Q anon conspiracies” are.
“the Israelis are ‘defending themselves’ by butchering thousands of children with an AI weapons system that specifically targets residences”
Another day, another blood libel made up from scratch that “useful idiots” swallow whole.
“homelessness is solved by criminalizing poverty”
Where did you even get this one? Maybe the bit about vagrancy laws? But I made absolutely no claim at all that they “solve” homelessness.
“fascism/Nazism are leftist ideologies”
As is well documented in a great many places, they are. Sorry you have so much difficulty with reality.
Here, let me give a similarly scathing, but much more honest, summary of your views:
As best I can tell from this thread:
–You believe socialism is good no matter how many millions of people it murders or how it descends into autocratic tyranny every single time – just a FEW more broken eggs, and we’ll get an omelette THIS time, I promise!
–you claim that genocide is bad while supporting the most blatantly, openly, consistently, PROUDLY genocide-supporting people on the entire planet
–you think the Palestinians are the target of genocide, even though their numbers have increased literally every year for decades, and the people supposedly doing it risk their own soldiers in urban warfare rather than simply bomb them out of existence (among other trivially easy examples of “not remotely genocide”)
–you seem to think homelessness is helped by letting people sleep in public places (still no homes for those people, you know…)
–you can’t/won’t list a single country that has ever existed that you will admit was socialist (since all of them are/were hellholes)
–and have no idea where actual stuff like houses even come from (magic house-making fairies? space aliens? YOU WON’T ANSWER)
Why are we even having this conversation? You are ignorant of huge amounts of very public, thoroughly-documented facts and claim people who do notice those facts are “programmed”. You are so thoroughly brainwashed you can watch actual video on stuff and believe your own eyes are lying to you. Your ideology is more convincing to you than reality.
“I’m out”
Again? How many times is that now on this thread? I hope it’s actually true this time, so I can stop trying to clean up after your rhetorical messes.
Sure, there are inconsistent references to not using money. But, again, there’s no ambiguity at all about their using money in TOS. Harry Mudd wasn’t giving away Tribbles, he was selling them. Kirk offers to pay miners for dilithium crystals the Enterprise needs. It goes on and on.
It’s arguable that money is only used for luxuries, and basic necessities of life are all free, on account of being so cheap that it’s just not worth the transaction cost to charge for them. That’s quite plausible.
Roddenberry was a bit of a nutcase on the subject of money, but that doesn’t mean the writers all shared his obsessions. Except when he had enough editorial control to enforce them, they didn’t let this fictional money free society get in the way of telling a story.
Perhaps the references to not using money was actual physical currency, as they’ve gone to a completely cashless credit system, except for the Ferengi.
Harry Mudd wasn’t the Tribble guy. That was Cyrano Jones.
But yes, TOS used “credits” for their monetary exhchanges. What precisely credits were was never explained in any canon way so far as I’m aware, though fans have certainly come up with many explanations for themselves.
My read on that was always that, within the Federation, it was a currency-free society. But when dealing with external societies that still used money there needed to be a Federation currency for outside use.
They didn’t convert the universe to non-money, just the Federation. You need X, apply for the necessary fabber time. You want to persue Y career? Takes these courses to gain the necessary skills. The point of their society was that it had moved forward to the point that “individuals hogging fabrication time” or “choosing jobs purely based off reputation gain or financial incentive” isn’t an issue. You want to be an artist, a teacher, a farmer? All viable. You want a chill job with low requirements and just vibe through life? Garbage processer provides the same lifestyle support as being a doctor. The whole system is about how the individual wants to live their life, not about balancing that dream against the material and financial limitations and punishments that we are so intimately familiar with.
They would still maintain a supply of standard currency when it comes to interacting with the rest of the universe.
You can always find something to invest in if you really want, like for example gold pressed latinum.
Which was a thing that Berman invented in order to try and keep the concept of scarcity around in a future where matter assembler technology exists.
“Oh, latinum can’t be replicated,” but…why not? Where’s the science-based explanation? There isn’t one, but capitalism demands scarcity in order to successfully exploit the workers, so Berman Trek had to concoct something to justify it.
In the Venus Equilateral series the MCs invent a matter replicator, which causes an immediate collapse of the economy, as well as a transition to a post scarcity society. However, there will always be things of scarity, like desireable locations, or marina space, so they came up with something that couldn’t be replicated. Basically it was tuned to be destabilized by the replicators scanning beam, so it you tried to replicate it, it blew up.
I always assumed the latium was something like that; A substance either designed or fortuitously discovered, that jammed the scanning function of replicators. The Ferengi, being no fools, understood that you actually DID need a currency that couldn’t be forged.
This would, of course, imply that it couldn’t go through transporters, either. I don’t recall if they bothered making that clear.
Well, it would make sense. You don’t want someone to be able to teleport your latinium out of your vault/hoard/safe. It would be a feature, not a bug.
See, that would pass as a “reason” for why the magic money metal can’t be mass-fabed.
At least until some tech wiz comes up with a work around, because that’s always going to be an arms race.
You do raise a good point regarding the limits of real estate, however. That said, I don’t believe people are kind as unreasonable and selfish as capitalists like to tell us. Would there be competition for locations? Certainly, but probably not quite as ferocious as all that. Particularly if we _are_ talking about a post-FTL society. And even here and now, a lot of folks would be perfectly happy someplace that isn’t _THE MOST BESTEST AND EXCLUSIVE SPOT_. Hell, there is a little town in Montana I’d be happy to live in, if I wasn’t absolutely certain the local fascists would try to burn me at the stake.
Not to mention that angle doesn’t hold up because land inherently only has value if used. Post-scarcity there would be no motive force to hoard land, as you couldn’t actually leverage that land towards profit. You would take as much land as needed for housing, a good view, and maybe garden space, and after that there’s not much further benefits. Personal projects, ranching, orchards, etc would just be at an off site location within easy post-scarcity travel distances.
Latinum can’t be replicated because replicators are ‘chipped’ to not do it, the same way photocopiers and printers can’t reproduce banknotes.
“Which was a thing that Berman invented in order to try and keep the concept of scarcity around in a future where matter assembler technology exists.”
Scarcity will ****ALWAYS**** exist.
In the most extreme versions of post-scarcity society that I have even been able to dream up (for more ridiculous than any sci-fi I have ever read on the topic, and I’ve read several), there will still be scarcity.
“owning the original” is simplest concept, and yes, people WILL still want those, even if you can replicate them at the molecular level.
“There isn’t one, but capitalism demands scarcity in order to successfully exploit the workers”
Having actually been other places in the world and seen how things work, I would ******MUCH******* rather be an “exploited worker” in a capitalist society than any of the other options that yet exist (well, I suppose “independently wealthy person in a capitalist society” would be better, but that’s not really a reasonable comparison).
Capitalism “exploits” its workers so hard that in 2 generations, they are among the wealthiest people that have every living in human history. Yeah, “exploitation”, woohoo!
Every society grinds people up in the gears, every society has a body count. As best I can tell, capitalist societies generally do that less than others, by a noticeable margin.
The only question, really, is if capitalist societies can stay that way in the long term. There are always people, everywhere in even society, trying to rig things in their favor… non-capitalist societies are more resistant to someone new rigging things in their favor because things are already fully and completely rigged.
Fallacy of relative privation.
Typical capitalist thinking. “It could be worse,” instead of, “we can do better.”
Also, if you want to talk about quality of live improvements?
The Soviet Union went from literal serfs living in wooden hovels that were literally never actually dry, to modern concrete & rebar high density high rise apartment buildings (with electricity & running water) in _less_ than _one_ generation.
Honestly, I think your real problem is that you don’t actually understand what socialism is, and are still chugging along under a load of Cold War propaganda. Hell, even the CIA has come out and admitted that the USSR wasn’t what the US Imperial messaging machine told us it was.
Maybe time to lay off the Kool-Aid, Man.
“Typical capitalist thinking. “It could be worse,” instead of, “we can do better.””
And yet, somehow, it’s the capitalist societies that actually DO BETTER. By a lot.
“The Soviet Union went from literal serfs living in wooden hovels that were literally never actually dry, to modern concrete & rebar high density high rise apartment buildings (with electricity & running water) in _less_ than _one_ generation.”
And yet, they LOST GROUND to the US, where improvement was faster (and that’s without taking into consideration how much of what you just said was unadulterated BS for PR purposes).
I have not taken anything the CIA says as even vaguely related to the truth (either for or against) in a long time. I base my opinion of the USSR on the eyewitness statements of those who fled from it or survived it. For some reason, they had to worry about keeping people IN, while we have to worry about keeping people OUT.
Yes, I do indeed suggest that you lay off the Koolaid. Smartest thing you’ve said so far.
Straight up lies and DARVO.
You’ve proven you don’t know a gd thing elsewhere, and I’m not wasting more time on you.
Just imagine how much more convincing it would have been to rebut what you claim are “lies and DARVO” (*eyeroll*) rather than spewing insults and bailing in the manner of someone who who isn’t up to making a proper case but wants to pretend they’re the only one who can.
Scroll up to where dippy defined socialism as monarchy.
I’m not obliged to waste my time, either arguing with idiots or educating someone who couldn’t be arsed to do the single most basic act of looking up what a single word means.
Neither is it my job to deprogram someone so steeped in propaganda that they would say something so utterly nonsensical as “socialism is monarchy.”
Just as well argue with a flat earthier or a Q conspiracist.
“I’m not obliged to waste my time”
No, instead you waste ours, flinging a lot of poo, but never actually giving us answers to anything. (To be fair, that’s only because you don’t HAVE any.)
Typical thoughtlessness from someone who can regurgitate agitprop and little else. Accuse everyone else of being brainless, because projection is how the single easiest way to spot a lefty (not 100% accurate…. but pretty close).
Gods, the projection.
Fine, I suppose I have a few minutes to spare while I’m getting my break in.
Do you know _why_ I discounted you as soon as you defined socialism as monarchy?
I mean, obviously not, or you wouldn’t have done it in the first place, so I’ll break it down for you.
Socialism is a system of economics. Monarchy is a system of government.
By asserting that socialism is monarchy, you are making the assertion that “a system of economics is a system of government.”
Now, while these two systems interact with each other, in a way not unlike the interactions between electrical currents and magnetic fields, they are nonetheless distinct from each other. The fact that you, Dippy, cannot separate economics from government in your own head, reveals that you are not doing even the most trivial critical analysis. I do not know whether you can’t, or simply won’t, but I can say with absolute certainty that you _don’t_.
This also exposes why you keep trying to assert – without showing any logical reasoning that demonstrates any sort of causal connection – that socialist economic policy must necessarily create an authoritarian governing system. Instead, you gesture vaguely to the failings and mistakes of a failed attempt, decline to analyze those failures, and declare victory.
See my previous reference to pigeon chess.
And that’s my point. You’re doing no actual analysis, engaging in zero critical thinking, and recycling fifty year old Cold War propaganda. It’s very much the same thing as the recent discussions about conservatives (or at least the most vocal and visible of the lot) seem to be utterly incapable of any sort of media literacy. They refuse to take anything but the most unutterably superficial reading of anything, be it books, film, comics, video games, whatever; if they dislike it, they proclaim it “woke,” and forecast its failure, if they do like it, they assert there’s nothing “woke” about it, claiming it proves or reinforces their stances, and if it turns out that it was popular and successful, but they don’t like it, then obviously it’s a conspiracy to inflate numbers or feign success.
And when they try to create their own spite media, such as Ladyballers, it turns out that they not only can’t understand media made by others, they can’t even make anything coherent themselves.
Because they’re not engaging in any sort of critical analysis.
And neither are you.
Anyway, back to work.
“Gods, the projection.”
Yes, but if I couldn’t put up with projection, I wouldn’t talk to anyone on the left. It’s common in human beings of every political and religions stripe, but in the last two-three decades, it’s been the single most consistent trait of people on the left.
Oh, you were projecting your own projection? Even that’s not nearly as uncommon as you think, sadly.
“This also exposes why you keep trying to assert – without showing any logical reasoning that demonstrates any sort of causal connection – that socialist economic policy must necessarily create an authoritarian governing system.”
I said from the beginning it was a practical definition based on observing actual attempts at socialism in the real world. None of the “true believers” go into it thinking that’s what they will get, of course!
The requested “logical reasoning” is as follows: every real-world attempt at socialism on the national scale has resulted in a severe autocracy ruled at the top by a single man (or in a very few cases, a small group of men) with grandiose trappings of power beyond “do what we say or we will kill you”.
That is, it has resulted in dictatorship with a fancy (and dishonest) paintjob… the same as monarchy. That’s why I say that. That’s what the real-world, actually-trying-to-make-it-work experimental data shows.
To quote YOU in this very thread: “You do not get to claim the cause, without the effects.”
I am quite aware of the academic claims you are making. I can (and have in the past) hold extensive and deep conversations about them. I just don’t bother any more – “how many Karl Marxs can fit on the head of a pin” is not my idea of a good time. Some people get a real kick out of conversations like that, which is fine – having a hobby is good.
***HERE IS THE SUMMARY IF YOU CAN’T BE ARSED TO READ THE WHOLE THING***
But in the real world, attempting to implement socialism on the national scale *REQUIRES* the authority and power to tell people what to do with their stuff and their time.
So, to actually implement the *economic* system you are talking about requires a *governmental* system that is authoritarian.
It’s not incidental – it’s inherent. *It’s one of the requirements.*
*** END SUMMARY ***
Yes, in theory, it could be some kind of *representative democratic authoritarianism”. Some would argue that’s the direction the US is going, actually.
But in practice, I am unaware of an attempt at socialism using that method… or, if they did attempt to use it, it devolved into a standard Dear Leader/President For Life situation quickly enough that people on the outside couldn’t tell the difference.
“And that’s my point. You’re doing no actual analysis, engaging in zero critical thinking”
Yes, I am aware that you think that. I would posit that you are projecting that problem onto me from yourself. I have done a LOT of critical thinking about why the utopian theory of socialism fails so horribly when put into practice.
If you are not tempted by the promises of socialism, then you do not understand the promises it is making.
It promises utopia on Earth, the best possible everything for everyone. (It doesn’t use that verbiage, of course, because that would make the con too obvious, but what else is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”?)
It just never delivers. I’m still waiting for the omelette to go with those 100,000,000 broken eggs.
“And when they try to create their own spite media”
I believe the area of “talk radio” would be a robust example of how that entire paragraph is projection. The left has tried several times to enter the talk radio space, and it fails horribly every time. Fox News (the early years, before they descended into self-parody) would be another, where panels actually had people all across the political spectrum and they have actual discussions on the issues.
Why do people like Mark Levin, with multiple long academic books, using well-documented historical analysis and other hard references, have such a strong showing in talk radio and in selling books to conservatives, if it’s the conservatives who are superficial? For the record, I don’t care for his show (his analysis is great, but his style is grating and rude), it’s just a good example (check his national numbers, both on radio and on television).
In fact, the most popular talk radio hosts almost all have significant hard analysis of hard facts built into their shows, no matter whose ox is gored.
“Because they’re not engaging in any sort of critical analysis.
And neither are you.”
No, the problem is that we did that analysis, thoroughly, long before you were paying attention (by your level of naivete, I would guess before you were born, as well), AND THEN we moved on to asking actually difficult and useful questions, like “How does this apply in the real world?”
You are stuck in the first step, doing infinite academic analysis with no real world application, assuming that we haven’t done the work on that. We have. A lot. For a long time.
It’s a bit like physicists talking about the possibility of creating worm-holes or other FTL travel using esoteric types of matter that MIGHT exist… sure, it’s fun, but until you know the matter in question actually exists AND can actually create or find some AND can actually manipulate it, it’s not actually useful in reality. FUN, maybe, but not useful.
But when every attempt to make said worm-hole or FTL engine results in large-scale death on everyone in the general vicinity, *eventually* everyone else is going to demand that you do your experiments far, FAR away from them, with only people who volunteer for it.
That’s where people who pay attention to the history of the last 110-ish years are at this point. Voluntary? Sure, have a good time. Otherwise, ***GET THE F___ AWAY FROM US*** because we don’t want to all die with you when your next attempt blows up and kills a bunch more people.
This doesn’t work for the Federation though. A major part of their society is therapy to prevent people from developing “but this one is the original!” kind of mental illness, the same system they use to functionally prevent 100% of crime.. Either the thing is worth having, or it isn’t, and whether it is the original is worth far far less than the value of the concepts and ideas behind it. That the federation sustainably reached a higher philosophical tier is a fundamental portion of the foundation of that fictional universe.
That’s your baseline? Do you think it’s absurd to even try to imagine a society that doesn’t treat its members as resources to exploit?
I don’t think so at all, but to do better we need a concrete idea/theory of how it would be better that is convincing to others.
If someone pitched a new set of laws that would drive people to work for it based on say their creativity, curiousity, kindness, or desire to have a purpose in a similar way that market economies drive people based on their desire for more resources that would be great!
But so far the competing alternatives that provide the closest approximation to making use of those urges are social democratic countries in the nordics with strong welfare states and strong union protections along with entrepreneurship boosting programs like allowing anyone to be on unemployment benefits for 6 months if they present a business plan that seems functional to the employment agency in Sweden.
In short, we need concrete policy/law proposals that have a solid theory for how they would work with the current system or how they would replace the existing necessary functions to equal or better measure.
“That’s your baseline? Do you think it’s absurd to even try to imagine a society that doesn’t treat its members as resources to exploit?”
That’s not MY baseline, that’s the baseline of all societies that have existed thus far in human history.
If someone manages to come up with a society that doesn’t do that, I will be all for it.
No such society has yet existed, and that includes many socialist societies (which are far worse about it than the capitalist ones, judging by the body counts).
Until something can be demonstrated, it is not KNOWN to be possible. Socialism has been demonstrated multiple times, and the results have run the gamut from “really, really bad” to “literally the most murderous we know to have ever existed”.
I think what’s actually been demonstrated is the people will eagerly sign up for any system promising them an escape from the horror of their lives, no matter how great the chance that it’s actually a lie, because they don’t have much left to lose.
On that, I will agree with you. The multiple “socialist revolutions” prove that quite well.
Latinum can’t be replicated because the energy cost is too high, because it’s too high an atomic number (transuranic like on Schlock Mercenary). As for carrying Gold Pressed Latinum on a transporter, AFAIK it can’t be done.
Capitalism certainly isn’t people managing themselves. It’s a monarchy in the making, a hierarchical system where people leverage capital to manage other people.
Government is that which governs. If you leave a void, someone will come along and fill it. We need a central government that has limited scope, but needs to be strong in that scope. The rightful purpose of government is to prevent the formation of government — or rather, to prevent the accumulation of private coercive power that could be used to install a totalitarian government.
Your second paragraph isn’t bad, but I your first one…
All societies are “monarchy in the making”, as there are always people around trying to make it a monarchy (with themselves as the monarch).
Socialism does not resist that in the slightest – seems to be tailor-made to fall right into it. Capitalism seems to resist at least some.
What are you suggesting that is more resistant than that? Actual track record would be appreciated.
I can see money as we have it today disappear in a much shorter time than a century.
With the deployment of AI in just about any profession, and mass robot labour just around the corner, there is not going to be any way to cling to capitalism that will not end in a massive and bloody revolution.
You cannot demand people to grind a job, to get money, to buy the things they need to survive another day. Not when every job can be done better and cheaper by AI guided robots. (or just plain AI).
Trying to force people to adhere to the current capitalist economies under those conditions is effectively the same as forcing them to starve to death, homeless in an alley. Some people will just lay down, but more will resist, and that resistance will quickly turn violent.
So, AI + robots will create virtually unlimited production.
That does not mean we will end up in a post-scarcity economy. Apart from the question if such a things is truly possible, there is the simple reality that resources, energy and time is limited. People may not need to have to work for it, but they will still have to adhere to a budget in what they can get their personal AI, Robots and 3D print replicators to create for them.
Then again, society can also decide to chuck anybody with excessive demands in a virtual reality where they really can have their every wish fulfilled and every whim catered to. That’s also a form of post-scarcity.
Doesn’t she mean *FROM* a pre-FTL world?
That Bachelorette Party must have cost a fortune even through a disreputable tour service.
Now I’m wondering how ANY Alien can afford to come to Earth.
Space Debt suggests Space Capitalism, which means there are Space Billionaires parasitizing Space Workers, so there’s a better than even chance the Times Square incident was a bunch of rich assholes slumming it in an exotic backwater.
“Space Debt suggests Space Capitalism, which means there are Space Billionaires parasitizing Space Workers”
That is the only possible reason for debt to exist? Wow. The world in your imagination is a scary place. I’m glad we don’t live there.
What reason? No reason was given, only consequences of debt existing.
“What reason?”
Exactly two reasons are required:
1) I would like something that takes more resources than I currently have, and I don’t have anyone willing to just GIVE me those resources.
This is the borrower. For what other reason would you go into debt?
Easiest example is a house. In the modern era, houses have lots of amenities of various kinds, and building one take a lot of resources.
2) I have resources that I can afford to spare but that I want back later.
This is the lender.
This kind of thing has happened *informally* since pre-history. Grug is a young guy who needs a new cave since he’s getting married. Crunk and Blarg are established cavemen who agree to help him dig it out so it’s done in time for the wedding, but they expect Grug to help them with hunting for a year or so in return.
No “billionaires” required. Paperwork and laws just formalize the process and allow people to lend and borrow relatively safely with people they don’t know directly.
That there are parties that act in bad faith (on BOTH sides of the relationship, not just one) changes nothing in the above.
Telling, that your go-to example is something that every sane human being with a functioning moral compass recognizes as a safety need (see Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs), and you want people to become indebted over it.
“Telling, that your go-to example is something that every sane human being with a functioning moral compass recognizes as a safety need (see Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs), and you want people to become indebted over it.”
I do not WANT people to become indebted over it. They CHOOSE to become indebted so they can get something they want NOW instead of decades from now.
(Convenient mind-reading, by the way. Utter BS, but hey, that’s what I’m used to from people who argue as you do.)
What is your solution to that? De facto slavery? Because “I want a house, so you have to produce one for me” IS SLAVERY.
Or should people just do without for decades, living with generations of people living in the same house (like the utopia of the USSR)?
Or should they just do without for decades until they can save up enough money?
Or should they RENT for decades? That’s a rat hole of money with FAR more abuses than a mortgage for a house you own.
Give me a solution that doesn’t involve the involuntary labor or taking of other people’s stuff (which they generally expended hours of their life to acquire the resources for).
You want Capitalism.
By extension, you want everything that goes with it, including enclosure & the commodification of needs.
Under capitalism, a house is a fetishized commodity – that is to say, divorced from its original purpose, housing a human being for safety, security, and shelter from the elements – that can be hoarded, thereby creating an artificial scarcity, in the sole interest of extracting profit – also known as the unpaid labor value of workers – for the sole benefit of the Capitalist, who has every motive to run the price (or more the rent) as high as can be, without concern for how this might impact the amount of debt taken on by any individual, or even society as a whole.
This is what you, as someone desirous of, and actively defending Capitalism, are spending your energy on, and therefore, by the economic principle of ‘revealed preference,’ absolutely do want.
You want people crippled by debt. You want society paralyzed by and held captive to ever spiraling financialization.
You do not get to claim the cause, without the effects.
“You want Capitalism.”
Again, you read my mind for your convenience.
I WANT prosperity for people. In the choice between “socialism” and “capitalism”, that means capitalism, yes, and the difference between the two is orders of magnitude.
If you can find another way, I am all for it!
Then you drop a whole lot of silly jargon without ever getting around to mentioning the solution to “I need a house sooner than I can get the resources to make one myself”.
Apparently, you HAVE no solution. What, you think houses would just magically make themselves if you evil capitalists were around?
You defined socialism as monarchy.
You don’t know wtaf you’re talking about.
Done now.
“Done now.”
Without ever answering any of the incredibly basic questions asked, just like all your other posts.
(And all your other claims of being “done”.)
You want everyone to have everything they need without needing to work for it. I’d imagine you would prefer going even a step beyond that such that the Universal Basic Income (or whatever you opt to call it, and however it is implemented) provides more than just that bare minimum but also makes life enjoyable. That’s a laudable goal – a man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart. But resources, including labor, are finite. Additionally, there is human nature you must contend with – we have evolved in fierce competition, and it is often difficult to turn that competition off for the betterment of society. Thus, when you attempt to implement programs to provide such a Universal Basic Income, you are going to have abuses – both from those tasked with overseeing it and from those who are recipients – that result in there actually not being enough resources to go around, even if you actually do have enough to meet everyone’s needs (which is not guaranteed). Additionally, there is the risk of recipients being perfectly content with what they get from UBI and opting not to contribute to society, which will reduce your production of the resources you need. And, of course, there will be those who oppose the existence of a UBI, because they want to have access to all the proceeds of their labor rather than having a portion of it spent on those who are net resource drains. And because of this, socialism doesn’t really work on a large scale – a man who is a socialist at 40 has no brain.
It’s not that most of us necessarily want Capitalism… it’s just that it’s the best large-scale system thus far. It’s far from perfect, of course, but it’s the closest we’ve got thus far.
Condescending, patronizing nonsense, from someone who thinks “socialism means free stuff.”
What socialism is, all that socialism is, is an economic system wherein the means of production is owned by the workers doing the producing. That’s it. The workers own it, and because they own it, the workers get the full value of their labor. That’s literally all there is to it.
There are, certainly, other policies that can emerge from a similar line of thought. The idea that things that are needed by, or beneficial to, society at large should be held in common and provided to all; examples being roads, schools, hospitals, courts, the post, the military, or the space program.
And none of this precludes the idea that someone can own property for their specific use! A house, a car, clothes, a toothbrush, or even land; there is a given area of land that one person can reasonably be expected to make use of, even for cultivation, given modern tools and techniques.
And none of that requires UBI, which is, in fact a _capitalist_ contrivance. Friedman came up with that because he was forced to acknowledge that the trajectory of capitalism is autocannibalistic: eventually it drives so many people out of the workforce – in the endless quest for lower payroll expenses – that the capitalists don’t have any customers left, because they aren’t paying enough people enough wages to by the goddamn commodities anymore!
*insert Omniman ‘Think, Mark’ meme*
Why the hell do you people think the standard of living has been declining in the Imperial Core for last fifty goddamn years? It sure as hell isn’t the workers, as productivity has been skyrocketing! Yet wages have been stagnant for that long, while inflation goes up, which means that, in real terms, we’re getting less and less while doing more and more. Meanwhile, ever richer assholes are riding their rocket powered penis extensions into orbit to no practical end. These “private space programs” have, LITERALLY, done less than NASA, while having exponentially more technology and resources at their disposal.
But sure, sure. “Soshuluzum bad, hur hur.”
*deep breath*
“If you not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart, and if you’re still one in your thirties, you have no brain.” Thats the line you were referencing, and it demonstrates the absolutely braindead propaganda used to manipulate and control the American Imperial sphere for the best part of the last century. And you people fall for it, happily, because you refuse to look past the end of your own nose. You refuse to see larger systems at work. I don’t know if it’s because you’re just scared shitless by the massiveness of it all – which I could at least empathize with – or if you’re all actually that absorbed by your own egotistical greed that you genuinely beluef that you are just “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Either way, however, I don’t fucking care any more.
I am no longer in the business of leading horses to water.
Bharda: “You do not get to claim the cause, without the effects.”
And the “effects” of socialism include highly authoritarian strong men, only differentiated from an emperor or king by the verbiage and trappings they use. China, USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, etc, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum. But you refuse to deal with the real world.
But you wave this magic little saying, “an economic system wherein the means of production is owned by the workers doing the producing,” and pretend that means everything is utopia without dealing with any of the obvious and consistent results of anyone, anywhere trying to implement that on a national scale out in the oh-so-scary-and-not-theoretical real world.
“I am no longer in the business of leading horses to water.”
There is no evidence on this thread that you ever were.
Judging by this thread, you are in the business of leading horses to the driest desert known to man, to lay down and die on the *hundred million* horse corpses already there.
I’ve surveyed that land, thoroughly, and going there is BAD for people, OK?
“Why the hell do you people think the standard of living has been declining in the Imperial Core for last fifty goddamn years?”
Hey, didn’t notice this one before, and it’s an easy one: we went to fiat currency. Matches right up with that “50 years ago” bit.
When the government prints more money, it devalues the value of all the rest of the currency, as there isn’t suddenly more stuff to spend the currency ON. That is, it causes that horrible inflation you are rightly upset about!
As such, printing more money is, de facto, taxation. The government devalues what you have (and what you are paid going forward, too! effectively lower wages, courtesy of Uncle Sam) and captures the difference for itself (or, more commonly, the cronies who are corruptly feeding at the government trough).
As such, the effective tax rate has been MUCH higher than the official one, inflation has been a problem, and buying power has been eroded. Pretty simple to understand, really.
Also, for accusing others of needing to “do their homework”, you make a lot of basic errors. The concept Universal Basic Income, under various similar names, has been around for a LONG time, and the modern concept is probably best placed with a man named Robert Spence… in the 1790s. So no, NOT Friedman. But nice (dishonest) try.
“These “private space programs” have, LITERALLY, done less than NASA”
Needing to “do your homework” again, I see.
Clearly, you haven’t checked the price per launch that these guys have, or the number of actual launches or tons delivered into orbit… because for anything in Earth orbit, these guys have made NASA looks like the rapacious billionaire capitalists you screech about, taking and taking and taking and giving nearly nothing in return.
Which makes sense, of course, since NASA was spending taxpayer dollars, which tend to be viewed by government people as infinite and meaningless, and these guys are spending *their own*.
The only ones trying to the value of labor without paying for it are Capitalists.
The core tenet of Socialism is that the worker deserves the full value of their labor.
Profits are the unpaid wages of the worker. Every dollar you get without working for it, someone else worked for without getting.
It is Capitalists, in their constant hunger for free value, that seek to drive down wages, and who would _gladly_ get _all_ the labor value without paying for any of it, if they could.
_That_ is slavery, my little kulak friend.
So, the worker deserves the “full value of their labor”, right?
So, the guy whose labor MADE the “means of production” should then own those means of production, right? I mean, that is “the full value of his labor”, right?
You throw jargon and insults, but you never actually answer any questions.
If I don’t have the resources to makes my own house, right now, *what do I do* that doesn’t involve TAKING someone else’s labor? (Having “the people” take their labor for me is still taking their labor – they still do not get “the full value of their labor”.)
If you can’t answer that question, you are a deeply unserious person arguing in bad faith.
You’re not picturing “the guy whose labor made the means of production” as the the workers who did the actual labor of building.
You’re picturing a capitalist who paid those workers less than the value of their labor to build it.
Which is what I expect of the guy who defined socialism as monarchy.
You want to talk housing? Look at Finland.
Go do the most basic homework, and then, maybe, I’ll give you my time.
“You’re not picturing “the guy whose labor made the means of production” as the the workers who did the actual labor of building.”
Yet again, super convenient (and super dishonest) mind reading!
No, I am thinking of a guy *literally* and with his own hands building something. A good old-fashioned water-driven sawmill (or any other kind of mill, really) is a simple example that is quite within the capability of one decent woodworker’s ability to make entirely on their own. Larger examples are just a bit more work, or the work a small number of men.
Even something like a large factory wouldn’t be beyond belief for a small group to make. And yet, in every socialist system where “the workers own the means of production”, the hard-working men who labored for months to build such are s___ out of luck, and the government will take their labor and give them nothing.
“Which is what I expect of the guy who defined socialism as monarchy.”
Yes, but “what you expect” and “reality” seem to be never have met. You have to keep setting up ridiculous strawmen that I explicitly do not agree with in order to have any points at all.
“You want to talk housing? Look at Finland.”
Finland is not socialist. Not by *your* definition, certainly, and not by their own. The “means of production” are not owned by “the people”.
“Go do the most basic homework, and then, maybe, I’ll give you my time.”
Says the person who can’t list a single socialist country that isn’t ruled by a dictator.
I have done this homework, thoroughly, for DECADES. You sound like a twenty-something trust-fund kiddie who has never had to take any risk or do anything for themselves… stuff is just THERE to be had, *magically*.
I have asked, and asked, and asked. Where does the house come from?
How does the young adult straight out of school get a house? They do not have the resources for it.
(The nicest answer is that their family, friends, and neighbors come together to build them a house, just out of the goodness of their own hearts. This is wonderful, of course, but utterly irrelevant to the discussion, as that can happen just as easily in any other system besides socialism. It also leaves those with little family up s___ creak without a paddle.)
Do they just do without? Do they enslave others to make it for them? Do they steal it (not really significantly different from the previous point in many respects)? Does the state enslave others on their behalf to make it for them? Does the state steal it from others and give it to them?
In what way could the laborers possibly “receive the full value of their labor” if the state is taking it and giving it to other people?
Who decides what the “full value” of the workers’ labor actually is?
You seem to be unable to answer any practical question like this.
The world is not made of hand-wavium. We have to actually BUILD houses. They take labor. They take materials… which take more labor to produce. A single person doing all of this labor, to produce a modern, boringly-normal American house, would take a decade to do it all on their own, and the knowledge to make all the specialized components, to learn and practice the techniques, would take another 5-15 years, depending on how serious you want to get about them making every little thing.
If the only thing they are allowed is their own labor (no debt! Only rapacious capitalist billionaires do that!), they will have no house for a LONG time.
So, where does the house come from in your theoretical utopia? No trite, canned non-answer of useless jargon – stop and actually think about it, for once.
And under socialism, that small group would own the factory. Communism is the system where the state would own it.
Hang on there Torabi.
What do the workers who work in the factory own then? It wouldn’t be practical for the people who are good at building factories to work in them instead of building more factories.
They wouldn’t own the means of production, you said that is owned by the factory builders.
It seems to me like there is now a conflict between the factory builders and the factory workers for who should own the factory.
“And under socialism, that small group would own the factory.”
Henry rebutted this nicely, but even more simply:
Please give me a socialist country where this actually happened.
“The People” own the means of production. If you MAKE the “means of the production”, you can’t possibly own it, because “The People” own it (definitionally, accordingly to Bharda and plenty of textbooks).
Thus, the people whose labor actually makes the “means of production” *absolutely can not possibly* get “the full value of their labor”.
I can, in fact, reconstruct capitalism *entirely consistent* with “the worker gets the full value of their labor”, simply by using the historical example of those men who built the early factories (as they largely *literally* built them themselves, since they were also largely inventing how to do it).
1) Bob builds a factory with his own hands, so he owns it, since that is “the full value of his labor”.
2) Bob wants to go build another factory without letting that one stay idle, so he gets people to work in it.
3) What is the “full value” of their labor? Well, it can’t be the entire output of the factory, as Bob’s work is where an incredibly large portion of the value output comes from.
4) So, they negotiate how much of the value goes to Bob, and how much goes to the workers.
5) Now, if the stuff sitting around waiting to be sold is not, in fact, something edible, and the workers need to feed their families, what do they do? The only way it sells immediately is if they sell it to someone who will do the selling or the shipping to the end user (the “consumer” of said product).
6) so, they sell the output of the factory to a group of truck drivers, who take the product to market and sell it. The truck drivers, of course, MUST charge more at the market, because they have to get “the full value of their labor” of doing the work to get it to market (and they have to pay for gas and upkeep).
7) So, on any given day, with fairly standard output and a fairly standard price for the output to the shipping group, a worker gets a fairly standard amount of money.
8) when someone new is hired, they also get that standard amount of money.
So, there we have it: “wages” from the factory owner, all entirely dependent on “the workers own the full value of their labor”.
It’s not a hard concept.
And if “The People(tm)” own the means of production, Bob will stop making factories, because he cannot possibly get “the full value of his labor”.
Or rather, if he is not constrained by an authoritarian government that treats him like property, he will leave that country and go somewhere else where he CAN get “the full value of his labor”: a capitalist country that will magnanimously “allow” him to actually own the factory that he builds.
@Henry
The workers who built said factory would most likely have done so on a contract from the group that wanted to operate it, probably working in tandem to st it up for best workflow etc.
The group that commissioned said factory would like have financed it by issuing bonds; that is, they seek a larger number of smaller investors willing to bet on their future success, and therefore their ability to honor the bond when it matures. People tend to forget about bonds because they are generally slow, stable, boring investments that don’t have the potential to create overnight gazillionaires. They’re dazzled by the flashy, high speed casino that is the stock market.
Honestly, everyone who just assumes that you can’t have finance without capitalism really does not understand finance in the first place.
“The workers who built said factory…”
Again, we are talking about the “workers” and the “owners” being *literally the same person* (or small group of people), as actually happened early in the industrial age (and before, with lesser scale “means of production” like saw mills and such).
But you won’t even acknowledge what we are saying. You are dishonest, arguing in bad faith.
Of course, now you are also utterly contradicting yourself from earlier in this thread, where we were talking about debt.
YOU were the one “assuming that you can’t have finance without capitalism”, rather explicitly. Here, let me quote you for your convenience:
Bharda: “Space Debt suggests Space Capitalism, which means there are Space Billionaires parasitizing Space Workers”
But now, finance doesn’t require capitalism? Or maybe it only requires capitalism… in space?
So, now you are saying that you don’t understand finance. For once, I agree with you.
If someone makes a table, and sells it, have they been fully compensated for their labor? Have they received the full value of the table? The table produces value every time it is used. Should the maker of the table be compensated every time it is used, or based on the number of people using it?
This is what distinguishes capitalism from free trade. It is the capitalist who believes they deserve to receive a portion of all value created by anytime they create or own, rather than the people who contribute the labor to the creation of that value. You can still have a market, buyers, sellers, sellers, creators and consumers, all without capitalism. What capitalism brings is the notion of rent, and the separation of people into two classes: those who own capital, and collect rent without contributing further to the production of value, and those who must continue to labor to survive. Anyone may theoretically scrimp and save and invest in capital so that they might transition from laborer to capitalist, but everyone cannot do so, or the whole system would collapse. And the capitalists are not so eager for company, and will make every effort to keep wages so low that the laborers can only just afford to survive, and to keep them too ignorant and dependent to invest in capital.
” It is the capitalist who believes they deserve to receive a portion of all value created by anytime they create or own, rather than the people who contribute the labor to the creation of that value.”
I have never seen this even CLAIMED by anyone until now. It is, frankly, bizarre.
If a capitalist sells you a table, *it’s your table now*. They are done with any claims.
You seem to be laboring under a strange definition of capitalism. I copied in definitions of capitalism from a few places earlier in the thread, and they all boil down to “people have property rights, and the government stays out of the way”.
Here, let me copy in the shorter one again: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”
That’s it. “people own stuff, the government stays out of the way”.
Only because it’s impractical in most cases. Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t prefer to “rent” things instead of sell them, and retain control after the point of sale. It is more evident in technology, where it becomes possible to impose after-sale restrictions. Consider printer manufacturers attempts to prevent the use of third-party ink, or impose an ink subscription model. Or the efforts of manufacturers to prohibit individuals from repairing vehicles or smartphones or other devices. Or Microsoft and Apple’s attempts to control what you install on your computing devices.
“Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t prefer to “rent” things instead of sell them, and retain control after the point of sale. It is more evident in technology, where it becomes possible to impose after-sale restrictions.”
Yes, yes, and I would “prefer” to have superpowers, be immortal, have arbitrarily high wealth, etc, etc, etc.
People want to get paid more for the same work? WUT? NOT POSSIBLE!
What they “prefer” and what the market will actually support are quite different, of course. That people push to get “the full value of their labor” in any way they can seems… very human.
“Consider printer manufacturers attempts to prevent the use of third-party ink, or impose an ink subscription model.”
That has mostly failed. And do you know why it has mostly failed? Because people then start to use *other companies* for their printers and ink, instead. That is, “market competition”, also commonly called evil evil evil evil “capitalism”.
When they is only one company doing something, they can raise prices. Then where are many companies doing something, largely, they can’t – some other company will undercut them and take their market share.
That is, we turn then the horrible, evil, greedy, power-hungry CEO types against each other. That, in a nutshell, is the great benefit of capitalism, of keeping the government weak.
When the government gets strong, it’s not that greedy, power-hungry people suddenly become more rare, they just join the government, instead. They all end up largely on the same team. That’s bad.
Note she mentions arranging it on her own, which would mean finding a ship willing to take her and personally chartering it. A ship that is already going to go there and that has dozens of other passengers is going to be markedly less expensive. But I did indeed get the feeling that the ones who visited Earth and made a big commotion (I assume that’s what you’re referring to) were fairly wealthy, while Tenri here is a struggling college student who is probably already amassing a good deal of debt.
Have you heard of the quantum particle which doesn’t move on its own, but can easily be moved by external forces, and has a resting mass close to zero?
The futon.
I always thought Star Trek used money and it was by Star Trek Next Generation that they didn’t use money anymore as by that point they had replicators that could make anything.
Money at that point would still be a bit tricky as there would still be a focus on trying to figure out what exactly is worth investing time into.
Sort of like Star Trek Voyager where they had replicator rations where everyone got ‘X money’ or energy they were allowed to spend to have the replicators make anything they wanted so while technically speaking nobody had to pay for anything as all the basics were still supplied… You still did your best or try to get a good job for the magic machine to ‘print’ anything you wanted… So long as it could fit inside the machine.
Personally, I’ve always favored crime as a primary economic driving factor in a post-scarcity society.
Money is really a way of saying convivence. Which is why those little stores are so popular. It’s so much easier to fork out money for something than buying a farm and raising crops to eventually get the wheat to make bread to make a sandwich, to say nothing of the fillings…
Thus the post scarcity society qualifier. When your systems are so efficient and you functionally have unlimited resources when it come to meeting not just basic “human” needs but even what was previously defined as “luxury” resources.
In the Federation this includes replicators in every home, so also ultimate convenience. Similar story with their functionally perfect VR rooms vs things like “limited access to beachfront property”.
Thus the post scarcity society qualifier. When your systems are so efficient and you functionally have unlimited resources when it come to meeting not just basic “human” needs but even what was previously defined as “luxury” resources.
In the Federation this includes replicators in every home, so also ultimate convenience. Similar story with their functionally perfect VR rooms vs things like “limited access to beachfront property”.
Well, it always annoyed me to see the TNG crew playing poker when you never saw them with any money.
Nothing weird about that. Poker is a game, like chess. Chips are how you keep score. There needn’t be gambling involved.
“Not chess, Mr. Spock! Poker!”
Of course, Vulcans never bluff, which makes them lousy poker players…
You’re playing with the wrong Vulcans, then.
“The logical course is to allow one’s opponent to deceive themselves.”
I know that this is a different show, but the Minbari would probably do worse at poker than Vulcans. :)
People play Monopoly with fake money so what’s the problem with playing poker for chips which don’t have real world value?
For most people, playing a table or board game is just a way to pass time and fraternize with other people. I don’t play D&D because it makes me rich in real life.
It’d be really cool if it did, but it doesn’t.
The really sad part is that the Trekkies would probably enjoy that 1500 page script.
That’s the good part, not the sad part.
I think he’s he’s saying it’s sad we didn’t get it.
And it is.
My interpretation of Star Trek’s economics was that while all needs were catered for, individuals could still spend money on wants.
So for example they would not need to buy a house or food, but if they wanted an indulgence like a boat they would have to pay for it.
I will admit I only have a casual interest in Star Trek, so I am open to there being evidence against this point of view.
its better to say its inconsistent. some authors tried to live with it, some authors rebelled against it, and other ignored it. Star Trek is drifting through an inverted neutron matrix into Dr. Who levels of cannon.
I like nerdy Max.
Seconded.
I would dearly love to see Halo running a TTRPG night for certain members of the Archon fam. And then we discover that Max plays a glib confidence Rogue, and Dabbles make a naughty, lascivious Paladin work w/o violating alignment. I got a fiver on Math turning up to be a tactician Wizard – probably a Necromancer with lots a touch spells – with a couple level of Monk or Ninja. Leon absolutely shows up as some sort of Construct race Cleric, and leads with, “D̴̠̎̀ò̶̧̡̘̭̯̼̳̣͘ ̶̢̧̧̺̼͇̻̝̞͑͘y̴̧͍͇̘̣̺̠͖̌͒̒͐͒̅͆͌͠ͅo̶̝̜̠̜̹̝̰̭͉͌̑̆͒͛͘u̶̡̪̼̍͑̀̾̐͑̽͌̕ͅ ̵̢̡̧̛̟̥͖̥̰̀̀̊̒̉̿͘r̴̼͉̠̹͒̆͗̿̇͋͘e̶̞͍͓̬͒̈͐͊͐̈́̓͘͝q̸̺͈͓̖̞̪̓̅̀̆̋̂̇̄̏ú̸͇̙̤̙̉i̸̧̧̺̹̫̰͍̓͐̇͒̈́r̸͙̩͈̬̥̂̍̄̔͐͛̚e̷̢̯͚̦͎̮̤̺͊̊́̅̓̚̚ ̷̮͎͓͙͍̥̈a̴̘̯̜̭̦̒̆̄̒̓̚ ̴̹͖͗̂͂̉̉t̵̘̥̬̗̞̳̺̲̊̋̓̅͛͜͝͝͝ė̴̛͙̠̲͍͕͎̻̌͂̓̿͊̉̚c̶̑̉̍̀̉̀́̇̀͜ḧ̷̰̹̏̑͂-̶̧̲̹͎̦̗͉͈̊͆ṗ̸̡̘̳͕̠̤̂̓́̃̉̈r̵̮̼̳͓̪̮͕̗̒͝i̸͎͗̔̀̆͌͂̐̍ě̵̛̯̟̩̾͂̅̊̕ͅs̷̨̛͔̱͚̎̈́̕t̷͇̣͙̖̤̠̺̙̹̄?̶̘̩͓̣̭̄̓̈̿”
Maybe Detla gets curious and joins in, doesn’t quite understand the concept of rpg escapism, and rolls up a Kobold Bard who specializes in Scatman vocals. X’D
Kobold Bards need to be using Interpretive Dance for their magic. It is not just a good idea, it is the law.
(Marisha Ray made it work once and it was hilarious :)
For a moment I was like: “Why is Lapha posessing Frix”?
Then I saw that Dabbler is holding the Lapha holder.
It took me a few seconds to work that out.
It actually looks like that stick Dabbles is holding Laph in is sticking through Frix’ head
One part of it is between his horns
Picard said it best. The people of the federation are no longer obsessed with the acquisition of things. That kind of mature mindset does not exist in a vacuum. No one is going to keep a boat they don’t need year round. Instead they will just replicate the boat when needed, then recycle the matter when they are finished. Holding on to it just because is a sign of mental illness and would be treated.
Instead of finding excuses for capitalism, why can’t people just accept that society can be better? It’s not impossible to share finite resources like a beach if people are responsible and not entitled pricks. Schedule your visits when you have time and if the beach has reached max capacity simply reserve a spot for next time and go somewhere else. It’s that simple.
on the beach you say?
Reservations gets you linewaiters/slotholders that for a price that invite you to join them .
AND
As long as they are finite assets, there is arbitrage.
There are people who when their basic needs are met will them spend their time gathering assets just to destabilize others. AKA Politics/tribalism/etc.
AND FINALLY
there are those will use those “free assets” to trade for the things society says they should not have or do. the criminal sociopaths if you will.
Except an explicit part of Federation society is the use of preventative psychological treatment to prevent people with those kinds of inclinations from appearing in the first place. You wouldn’t try to ride-along with some else’s each time because you respect that the max number of beach users was decided after fair consideration. If it was a big deal, like you accidentally cancelled your slot for a friends beach birthday, you would send a request for a time slot exchange and someone else would give you theirs because they just lined their time up as “something to do” while it’s clearly more important to you. They would do this because a major part of the functioning of the federation is to create citizens that hold fundamental and comprehensive moral principles.
A major portion of the original premise was that the federation wants to peacefully spread their system and ideology to other species, not for imperialistic motivations but because they believe its the right thing to do.
” Federation society is the use of preventative psychological treatment”
ST plots and presence of counselors in the Fleet says otherwise.
There is a whole intel division with bases and fleets in the Federation that says they failed.
Doesn’t Picard (and his family going back generations) own a winery in France?
I’m sure replicator credits were also mentioned or a similar phrase. The crew couldn’t have free access to make anything anytime.
Also all the physical repairs done to the ship when they have replicators and transporters meaning they could be done instantly if they were inclined and had the energy to spare. I’m sure the computer knowing it’s complete design isn’t unrealistic.
Energy is clearly rationed and likely payed out in credits as part of your wage.
Replication was probably pretty energy expensive compared to conventional fabrication methods; It was used extensively on star ships because their warp drives were such energy hogs that you hardly noticed the drain for replicating a cup of tea, and you had limited room for storage.
But on a planet, where you had storage space up the wazoo, and had to worry about dumping too much waste heat into the biosphere, you probably avoided using it where you could.
But Star Trek physics was never particularly consistent, it varied absurdly depending on plot requirements.
This.
3d printing can make all kinds of interesting things, which makes it really interesting for scientific research and other non-scaling solutions.
Mass manufacturing is still cheaper.
Just, because you can 1.000.000 kilo of antimatter into a swimming pool doesn’t mean that mining a readily available water isn’t cheaper.
“Replicator credits” were a thing in the early seasons of Voyager, when the crew was trying to save on power consumption. Then the writers promptly forgot about the concept, around the same time as USS Voyager gains its magical infinite supply of torpedoes and shuttlecraft (both things that early episodes established they had no way to build more of).
Replicator credits were a part of Voyager but as far as I can tell, that was only because they were far from home and no longer had access to the Federation’s energy resources.
That’s the same reason they converted a room into a kitchen and started cooking meals with real food rather than replicating meals.
I don’t think they were officially part of any other starship.
Though I’d imagine that Starfleet put some kind of limits on what any crewman could replicate all at once. I doubt an engineering cadet could replicate a Disney cruise ship just because he walked up to a replicator and asked it to make him one.
… And how do they stock the kitchen with food when they rarely visit planets?
They made that kitchen because that alien (forget his name) needed something to do to justify staying on board a military ship, and because the crew like the idea of having food that was made by hand (even if it was replicated food)
I mean Kirk had a lavish penthouse apartment, Scotty had a boat, Mccoy was retconed to join so cause of divorce… they may not of had money, but they implied some exchange all the time.
Sisko’s father runs a restaurant, and for some reason I have a hard time believing that there are people who voluntarily decide that their life’s dream is to bus tables or wash dishes or wait tables, when Sisko’s father has those ’employees’ when Jake and Sisko are not there.
You’d be surprised, Pander. In Japan, Ramen shops have plenty of employees – or rather, apprentices. They work there in order to learn how to make ramen themselves. I imagine Sisko’s father has plenty of young people showing up at his place specifically in order to apprentice under a master Cajun chef.
After all, not everyone wants to join Starfleet. Some people just want to make really good food and enjoy the smileson a patron’s face.
I am not talking about making food. I am talking about the people who were washing dishes and cleaning the tables and waiting tables. Stuff that has nothing to do with cooking in the kitchen as an apprentice.
You’ve never worked an apprenticeship, have you?
*said with a rueful chuckle*
I was a law clerk, if that counts. But I actually learned stuff that had to do with the profession I was entering. I didn’t sweep the guy’s floors and wash his car. :)
They have a philosophically mature society, that’s a major point of the setting. Everyone would both cook and clean, whether they like that portion of the job or not, because they value the work as a whole and the happiness of their fellow workers. Younger people would manage difficult physical work because older individuals are less capable, same way we help out our parents and grandparents, because they have moved beyond just valuing the individuals in their immediate “tribe”. A significant portion of their education system is dedicated to developing children philosophically, just as the majority of their criminal system resources are dedicated to working alongside advanced AIs in identifying individuals that are trending in a destructive direction and providing them free therapy and counseling to address the root issues that might lead to criminal behavior.
We have no idea how a needless society actually would work. Maybe when you have no real need for work, you get really bored. Imagine you are an average citizen of the Federation, not one good enough to join Star fleet, you are just average, you have interests, but you are not good enough to make a job of them, your basic needs are satisfied, even things that would not be basic for us, like plastic surgery, for example. Maybe for these people working for a restaurant for six months/a year would be a pleasant diversion, most of the jobs would be probably automated, the presence of humans waiters would be mostly flavor, kind of like a LARP.
You might be surprised.
If I knew for a fact that my basic needs were going to met regardless, I for one would be willing to take a lot more risks on pursuing my interests. Such as cooking. I could very happily run a small food stall or a little, hole in the wall izakaya.
Scotty had a moon but lost it in the divorce.
Money is an energy analog. Money flow = energy flow. No money flow = no energy flow = heat death.
If you could have anything you want any time you want, by little more than imagining it, you would be dead inside 5 minutes — of boredom.
Try writing a story set in a society where nobody needs to exchange anything for anything, where any kid can find a pony under the Christmas tree. Star Trek handles it by avoidance: no raw material ever needs to be refined & shaped, to *become* one of those replicators, I guess b/c the raw material refines & shapes itself, no labor, and therefore no compensation for effort, involved. No effort. No energy.
When you come down to it, all money is immaginary.
Read Terry Pratchett’s ‘making money’ it explain it well and it is funnier than your average economy text.
Of course there are limits. if Star Trek was really moneyless why don’t everyone have their own starship?
I assume in the Federation basic stuff (food, decent housing and clothing, healthcare, education, etc) are free, but for elaborate things, like your own olimpic pool or, you know, a boat, you must use some kind of money.
See also Douglas Adams’ treatment of the “indefinite economic growth” fallacy, whereby you deposit one penny in a bank account and the compound interest pays for your meal at the Restuarant At The End Of The Universe.
Larry Niven takes it slightly more seriously. Corbett the frozen cancer patient is revived to find his Trust Fund was declared illegal centuries ago and he is basically destitute.
I’d rather just think “continuity errors in Star Trek? Really?”
Or a moon. Bones lost one in divorce.
The root problem of money versus no money is that the majority of sapients on Earth are human and removing the threat of starvation from humans also removes motivation from a significant portion of them. For a good read on meritocracy, try Voyage From Yesteryear by James P. Hogan.
On a completely different subject: is “a ’92 VW Beetle transmission” a typo? They were still making them in Mexico and Brazil then, but we couldn’t get them in the US and the New Beetle didn’t come out until 1997.
A few Mexican Beetles have managed to sneak over the border. It might have gotten retitled as a 1977 model but sketchier things have happened. I’ve never had my hands on a Mexican built transmission (I almost said “tranny” but who knows where this crowd would run with that) but at least in the car world, information regarding a rare variant would be more valuable.
In 77 how good was Mexican manufacturing of transistor radios?
Just so.
A lot of car parts are made, or at least assembled, in Mexico to this day so I guess the quality is at least acceptable. As for radios, I’ve never seen one from Mexico, at least not one old enough to have discrete transistors. Before downsizing I had a sizable radio collection and have seen them from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one from Mexico or points south of there.
So what’s next for Lapha?
Short term? A cell.
Long term?
…we were talking about it a few pages ago. I’m hoping she can get a near-complete reset and then adopted out to a good Terran family.
I also expect that having some kind of fair exchange will always be with us. In a post scarcity society it may look more like barter and trade with the bartering being very flexible. One of our biggest issues with capitalism is that we all start from zero and can return to zero. A sufficiently advanced society won’t let that happen and instead everyone has something like a starting wage or universal support like government funded housing, education, and healthcare. One theory in the AI sphere is that everyone will eventually be able to have their own agents doing barter and trade for them. You didn’t know you’re renting your lawn mower until your AI lets you know.
A.I. should be driving the mower. I’d totally risk a Skynet situation for taking some of the more annoying mundane tasks of life off my plate.
Do you want AInts? Because this is how you get AInts.
No one would be renting a mower in this situation. The only way a post-scarcity society will work is for most people to live in efficient communal dwellings like apartment buildings. Any grass would be in communal areas like parks or natural enclaves. “Suburbs” would require a step up for people willing and able to earn it.
[Digression and rant] A well-maintained monoculture grass lawn is an environmental nightmare that was originally and still is a symbol of wealth. A few hundred years ago only the most wealthy could devote the resources and land area to maintaining such an abomination. In modern times it’s seen as a dividing line between the “middle class”, people who care about what their middle class neighbors think of their 1/8 acre of manicured lawn, and the “poor”, or people who cannot afford a home with a lawn or can’t devote the time/resources to maintaining it.
I’m a suburbanite who once took pride in my perfectly green lawn, but who is now slowly converting it to a more natural “lawn alternative” with multiple species of native grasses and flowers. I still mow it (I’m not a caveman), but not as often. Instead of bagging and disposing of the leaves that fall every year, I shred them and use them as natural mulch for the flower beds and garden. My neighbors probably look at my “lawn” with disgust, but I really don’t care.
My mother, brother, and nephew live on three adjoining rural lots around a pond with several acres of grass. With a large, fast, “zero-turn” riding mower it takes him 5 hours to mow everything every two weeks, plus they pay someone else to weed-whack around the pond. Their mower is really old and they are trying to decide whether to put a few thousand dollars of maintenance into it, or buy a new one for about $11,000. If I lived there (which I will eventually) I will immediately eliminate “my” portion of lawn and turn it into something more natural or useful or both. I absolutely will not be investing in a share of an $11,000 mower.[/Digression and rant]
“The only way a post-scarcity society will work is for most people to live in efficient communal dwellings like apartment buildings. Any grass would be in communal areas like parks or natural enclaves. “Suburbs” would require a step up for people willing and able to earn it. ”
Ah, but that’s not “post-scarcity” – “suburbs” would be a limited commodity.
Of course, human beings can not live post-scarcity – they will *INVENT* something to be scarce, just to say they have it and someone else doesn’t. Even with matter replication, “the original” of something is still scarce (there’s only one of it), same with “vintage” items, etc.
When *most* people (including myself) say “post scarcity” they are referring to *basic* physiological and psychological needs. Physiological needs such as food, clothing, and shelter; psychological needs such as education and entertainment.
I believe a significant percentage, maybe even a majority, of humans would be perfectly content to simply exist in a world where the basic needs above are met and they didn’t have to *do* anything. Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, and spend their time being entertained or exploring their local world.
Of course, some people *will* have to actually work to raise the food eaten by the masses, construct and maintain the communal dwellings and transit systems, police lawbreakers, etc. This work will be greatly aided by AI and/or robots, but human oversite will always be required. This is where most pure Socialist/Communist systems break down. If everyone is exactly equal, why should I have to perform work to raise/prepare the food consumed by those who do nothing? And equally sharing work isn’t feasible because some people can’t actually perform the work (physically/mentally disabled, etc.).
And also, of course, some people will want “better” than what the masses are given. Better food, more transportation freedom (private car instead of bus/train), a larger apartment or small house with a lawn in the “suburbs”. They *want* to perform work so they can have these better things.
This is why there will always be a need for some aspects of Capitalism and Money, which is where non-basic scarcity comes in. The ones who perform actual work *must* be rewarded for that work, or else it’ll never happen.
That definition of “post-scarcity” is certainly quite reasonable, but it also (as you rightly point out) leaves a need for “money” (among other things, several of which you touch on).
The people arguing that we won’t need money (or other odd points you can find scattered about here and other places) are clearly not using that definition for “post-scarcity”. (Or they aren’t engaging their brains at all, which is common in all of humanity on every side and in every era.)
Post-scarcity does not include manufactured demand. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt: Comparison is the thief of post-scarcity joy.
The last good Republican, to be sure.
I genuinely wish that this country would take more of its cues from the Roosevelts, and fewer from Wilson, Truman, and Reagan.
For the record, it’s the Capitalists who are always trying to extract labor value without compensation, not Socialists.
The core tenet of Socialism is that the worker should receive the full value of their labor.
So you say, and yet it’s the capitalists who bid for labor (offering compensation for workers’ labor/skills) while the socialists steal it (via frequently nationalizing the works and lives of others). Funny that.
Also, define “full value of their labor”. This should be fun! Hint, Marx kept bollixing that up every time he tried to be “rigorous” about it (*cough*), so don’t lead with anything he spewed.
Who has the class interest in lowering wages?
Who constantly seeks policies that drive down wages?
Who expends resources to atomize workers and prevent collective bargaining over wages?
Who sets off in-house company policies discouraging or even outright prohibiting discussing wages between coworkers?
Capitalists.
The same capitalists who recognize “wages” as “the price of labor,” and who pocket the difference between the value of the commodity and the wages of the worker who labored to produce it.
That’s what “profit” is: the unpaid wages of the worker.
Every dollar capitalists gets without working, labor works for for without getting.
Furthermore, you have deliberately and deceitfully tried to reverse the positions of capital & labor in the bidding process. Labor is the side that offers the bid, at a given price. Various groups of workers offer lower and lower bids in hope of undercutting other workers & securing wages for themselves.
This is why capitalists hate unions! When labor organizes, and stands firm on their price, capitalists are forced to pay better wages, or else not get any labor at all.
Oddly, however, when capitalists drive wages down for their benefit, that’s “good business,” while when labor organizes to push wages up, well that’s “soshulizum.”
“Furthermore, you have deliberately and deceitfully tried to reverse the positions of capital & labor in the bidding process. Labor is the side that offers the bid, at a given price. Various groups of workers offer lower and lower bids in hope of undercutting other workers & securing wages for themselves.”
Depends on the market. When there’s a glut of labor, yet, that’s what happens.
When there’s a shortage of labor, the reverse happens. As such, “big business” tends to support open borders, to create a glut in the labor market. So why does the so-called “party of the little guy” demand open borders EVEN MORE than business ever did? That results in much lower wages for “the little guy”…
“When labor organizes, and stands firm on their price, capitalists are forced to pay better wages, or else not get any labor at all.”
Or, when unions threaten violence against any “scabs” who are quite willing to do the work for lower wages, the people wanting the work do without, and are forced to take *even lower paying* jobs (if they can find one at all).
Unions are not some panacea. They have good points and bad points. Like most socialist ideas, they actually can work just fine… if everyone involved is involved *VOLUNTARILY*.
Why do most people in the US hate unions? Why has union membership consistently fallen for decades? Because the biggest unions, like the AFL-CIO, are completely corrupt and provide no benefit to their members, siphoning off “dues” by law in the states that let them do so, not by choice, then doing whatever they like with them.
Smaller local unions (like plumbers or electricians’ unions) are doing just fine, and quite popular, even with those evil, evil capitalists, because they do things like “make sure their members know what they are doing”. They do this because, if they provided no benefits to their members, their members would no longer be their members! Another benefit to their members is the high reputation of their members knowing what they are doing, leading to those evil, evil capitalists higher them preferentially in many cases, because they know they will get good work for the higher dollar they pay.
What, VALUING labor? NOT POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!1!11!!!!one!!!eleven!!!!!
Show on the doll where the bad capitalist touched you.
Let’s say, for example, that there’s a field with 10 farmers working it. How should the crops be divided?
Communism: everyone gets an equal share, regardless of how hard they worked.
Socialism: everyone gets a share proportionate to the amount of work they did
Capitalism: The ‘owner’ of the field gets to decide how the crops are divided.
“Communism: everyone gets an equal share, regardless of how hard they worked.”
Which means there is no incentive for working hard. Result: massive productivity penalties (as seen in the real-world communist countries), in quantity, quality, or both.
“Socialism: everyone gets a share proportionate to the amount of work they did”
How much work they did… according to whom? And what is their incentive to be both good at judging how much work the workers did AND being honest in the reporting? And what is the value of the “work” of this overseer? Who judges that?
“Capitalism: The ‘owner’ of the field gets to decide how the crops are divided.”
And if he doesn’t decide well, good workers go elsewhere to work for other farm owners who do a better job. This means that the owner has a strong incentive to be relatively fair, and the workers have a good incentive to work relatively hard.
In the aggregate, the incentives will be followed, and the incentives of socialism are bad.
(Nice putting ‘owner’ in quotes like some scary or suspect word. If you are paid for the full value of your labor, and you save some of that up and purchase land, why should you be denied the “full value of your labor”, which that money represents?)
“Of course, human beings can not live post-scarcity – they will *INVENT* something to be scarce”
Thus Pokemon cards, Magic cards, baseball cards, foil Pokemon cards, foil Magic cards, foil baseball cards, etched foil Pokemon cards, etched foil Magic cards, etched foil baseball cards, etc.
Signed baseballs.
Baseball card with preserved bubble gum flavor.
:)
Sisko didn’t have much respect for the Federation’s, and in particular Earth’s, concept of scarcity though because he felt it made the Federation and Earth extremely naive and ignorant. He said as much to Major Kira. Major Kira agreed.
https://youtu.be/dzj2I-ai3iE?t=79
Didn’t Sisko have a signed baseball, an original signed baseball?
Yes, that’s sort of my point. Although I did make a mistake – the auction that Jake was begging Nog for money for was not a baseball – it was an authentic mint condition Willy Mays rookie baseball card. Which also was valuable because of its numismatic value. If they just replicated it, it would be worthless as a collector’s item because there is actual scarcity with the item.
Ms. Scoville is thinking the 1st season of STNG when “the great bird of the universe” was still in charge and made the sad little socialist/communist episode “Neutral Zone” in which “Picard” is at is most insufferable (ok late era Rodenberry in a picard skin) deals with the second Capitalist straw man of the season (the first being the ferngi) in which he claims there is no more money ….
while elsewhere there
2364 Crusher BUYS cloth at farpoint station (1st episode !)
vulcans selling meditation lamps in 2368 at 2x price since it is SF officers
2364 Crusher BUYS cloth at farpoint station (1st episode !)
Janeway later says she is “not used to handling currency”
2285 McCoy tries to hire a smuggler
2366 the same post money Picard BUYS a fertility statue on Risa – a Planet in the Federation
etc etc etc.
There’s a lot of “credit” but also we still have gold pressed latinum. The Federation does have it’s own use for physical currency but usually just uses a debt based system. Every time Crusher bought something it was holdover language. Buying cloth, paying for drinks at Quarks, pretty much everything is barter in space. Just like Grandpa Sisco never charged anyone anything for food and drinks. His entire mojo was service and the food just kept cycling even though it never really was bought or sold.
In TOS (The Original Series) there was never any real commerce because it would need lots of props and actors. Commerce still existed. See “The Trouble with Tribbles.” There was a barter going on… until all of the food got eaten.
Notice how every single example you cited is of Starfleet officers interacting with people from OUTSIDE the Federation? They would need a recognized form of currency in order to trade with non-Federation members. And since they’re Starfleet (and thus prone to regularly interacting with non-Federation members), they would be provided with room and board (which, aboard a Starfleet vessel, means “unlimited food, luxurious accommodations, and full access to whatever entertainments are available”), plus enough “Federation credits” that they can deal with other species who aren’t part of the Federation.
All the Defenders of Capitalism get VEEEERY touchy when someone points out that “capitalism/socialism” isn’t a binary choice, but more of a slider bar. You can have both simultaneously (and EVERY society DOES have both. The only question is where to set the slider).
“EVERY society DOES have both. The only question is where to set the slider”
Only for a *very* broad definition of “socialism”.
“Capitalism” has existed since long before the concept was named by Marx (that’s his term for what was more generally termed “regular economy”, or occasionally “mercantilism” perhaps). People trade voluntarily.
“Socialism”, where a central authority controls everything in the name of “the people” was brand new… but in practical terms, the only real addition was the claim that it was “for the people”.
Otherwise, it was pretty boring old dictatorship, where the government takes whatever the F___ it wants, and you can suck it up or die (or both – dictatorships are often nice that way).
And yes, “monarchy” is generally just dictatorship (at least until relatively recently, historically speaking, where monarchs still exist by name but have lost most of their power and are essentially trappings of state ritual).
Now, you can claim that there have been leaders or leading groups that managed things “for the people”, but again, that was only in as much as they felt like doing so, as they generally had the power to do as they wished. Even Ye Old Council of Elders was not remotely above horse-trading, log-rolling, and just general corruption for their own benefit and power without thought to how that would affect “the people”.
“The people” don’t do almost anything. The closest thing would be “mob action”. Everything else is someone or a group of someone’s acting for “the people” (supposedly), and in practice, it’s lip service covering for dictatorship, not really much different than “the divine right of kings”.
Modern day democratic republic is much closer to having a claim of being “for the people” than any communist or socialist leading body (usually de facto 1 man) ever had, and even then, the claim is not nearly as great as we wish it was.
Still waiting for you to define ‘socialism.’
Still waiting for you to engage with actual facts instead of BS talking points that have little to do with reality.
I responded to your original post, above. Spamming your trite little nothingism everywhere is unhelpful and counterproductive.
marxist argument (critical theory?) trying to reset the argument based on terms.
A term no marxist reader should have to define.
an honest reply would have been “since socialism is XYZ these … ”
and since Marx could not prove that the utilization of labor scales with production.
But did show capital investment does, the value of the labor decreases.
BTW your implication that everyone that argues against socialism is covered in an anti Alt-Right media post is so bad it’s a trope.
I’m tired of eating time on people on who don’t know the first goddam thing about the subject.
Dinky here defined socialism as a monarchy.
Why in the fuck should I give that any time, consideration, or respect?
Lets see…
You said that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove. This began two posts ago where you demanded someone else define ‘socialism’ after it was already defined by dictionary standard.
You attacked your opponent’s character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument. That was your second line in the above post.
You asked a question that had a presumption built into it so that it couldn’t be answered without appearing guilty. That was the third line. No matter what answer anyone gives to this you will disregard it as a guilty plea as you have already put your time, consideration, and respect above the others in said disagreement.
I can only assume you’re going to go for ‘no true scottsman” next. If you can’t argue with time, consideration, or respect then you already lost the argument.
“Dinky here defined socialism as a monarchy.”
That’s because, in practice, they are no different than a monarchy. They have different trappings and use different verbiage, but the guy at the top says “the government now owns that”, and it is so, the guy at the top says “kill that annoying person”, and that person dies.
That’s what you see when you watch socialism of any flavor in action for several decades. That is the result of trying to implement what you claim to believe.
And “useful idiots” like you are the first against the wall the moment the Glorious Revolution succeeds and ushers in the iron-fisted rule of Dear Leader.
But hey, you’ll just throw out another “No True Scotsman” of some kind, or reference the not-socialist Scandinavian countries and refuse to actually engage your brain or acknowledge obvious real-world facts.
I don’t expect to get through to you – this is for other people reading this to avoid becoming “useful idiots”, as well.
Capitalism is not just another name for free trade, which has existed since time immemorial. What distinguishes capitalism from trade is that capitalism runs on economic rent, rewarding ownership rather than labor. Capitalism is just the modern version of feudalism, and improved only in that there’s slightly more economic mobility: you can potentially transition from the labor class to the capitalist class, rather than it being assigned unchangeably from birth.
Communism is essentially just state capitalism, and indeed only distinguished from a monarchy in that a political party rules, rather than a family. All power-based systems have the same end goal: single ruler who owns and controls everyone and everything. They’re all just at different stages, and different strategies of reaching that same goal.
Socialism is distinct in that it relies on cooperation and group decision making, and is inherently more compatible with democracy
“Communism is essentially just state capitalism, and indeed only distinguished from a monarchy in that a political party rules, rather than a family.”
Uh oh. Don’t let Bharda see you posting that! She’ll get upset at you and call you “Dippy”.
Oh, and also, don’t let Bharda see you conflating “feudalism” (a system of government) with “capitalism” (and economic system). She’ll insult you for that, too.
“Socialism is distinct in that it relies on cooperation and group decision making, and is inherently more compatible with democracy”
Cool theory! Now, name the places that’s what is actually going on. Or even has gone on on any significant scale.
Capitalism is indeed just another word for “free trade”, which has indeed existed since time immemorial, with exactly all the same problems you attribute to capitalism. It is, in fact, so very much the default of humanity that “black markets” spring up in every socialist country of any flavor, spontaneously, even with people rigorously indoctrinated since birth.
The requirements for capitalism: strong property rights, and… Hmm…. umm… oh, that’s it.
Actually, it’s even less than that. Even when people legally have no property rights, they still know and keep up with which stuff is theirs and make trades, even when getting caught doing so is punished.
What else makes “capitalism” more than “normal activity that people do with their property”?
Now, we can talk about “debt peonage”, certainly, but that involves VIOLATING the property rights of others, inflicting debt upon them in ways they do not voluntary submit to for their own gain – that is to say, effectively, pre-emptive theft of their labor.
We can talk about “loan sharks”, but unless it’s actually debt peonage instead, it’s voluntary, no matter how much you pound the table that it isn’t. ESPECIALLY in modern societies where there is no shortage of food (even for free, if you ask). “People make bad choices, story at 11.”
You can talk about inherited wealth, but unless you are willing to give up leaving stuff to your own descendants, you are a hypocrite with no principled position on the matter. Of course, even if you ARE willing to give it up yourself, that is still a violation of the concepts of ownership.
But hey, maybe I’m wrong. What defining or required part of capitalism am I missing?
Here, for reference, Miriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
“an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”
Or perhaps Encyclopedia Britannica? https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-capitalism
“Capitalism is a widely adopted economic system in which there is private ownership of the means of production. Modern capitalist systems usually include a market-oriented economy, in which the production and pricing of goods, as well as the income of individuals, are dictated to a greater extent by market forces resulting from interactions between private businesses and individuals than by central planning undertaken by a government or local institution. Capitalism is built on the concepts of private property, profit motive, and market competition.”
Those are both a lot of words to say, “People own stuff, and the government doesn’t get in the way.”
Ownership is not a physical trait, and generally not an observable one either. It’s purely a social fiction. Someone only owns something if society agrees. We can construct any set of rules for determining ownership or the transfer of property, depending on what we think is moral or serves society best.
Consider an extreme example, in which one person managed to acquire the entire planet, all the land and natural resources. Do you think the population would simply accept that they were entirely at the mercy of the owner, or would they rebel, and declare that ownership unreasonable? What, morally, should they do?
You may consider that an entirely unrealistic scenario, but where’s the line where the rule changes? Is the situation any better if the world is evenly split between two owners, or two hundred? If all the land is already owned, how is a new person supposed to compete, to live freely? Their initial position is one of relative powerlessness, and those in power have no motivation to allow someone in the lower class the opportunity to rise up to join them.
There’s at least SOME truth to what you are saying, so you’re ahead of Bharda.
But in practice (at least thus far!), capitalism has avoided this problem due to human lifespan. In the US (which at least used to be a fairly good example of actual free market capitalism in most areas of the economy), accumulated wealth is largely dispersed again by the third generation down.
Generally, it goes something like this:
1) Dude makes a lot of money, usually by making some kind of breakthrough (not necessarily a technological one) or just plain offering better service for less money – that is, he EARNS it with his LABOR
2) Dude’s kids learn the business from their father and run it passably after he’s gone, but not great. They remember how hard he worked to make it happen, and they remember what life was like before wealth.
3) Dude’s grandchildren are morons who expect stuff to just always be there for them (like Bharda seems to), so they don’t run the company well, and it either goes public or goes under.
Add to this that the wealth generally gets split several ways each generation, and the problem has, THUS FAR, largely solved itself.
What you are talking about is actually much more possible in a heritable monarchy – the British Empire would be a decent example of the problem if the British monarch had still been a true autocrat at the time.
And thus the creation of corporations as immortal, legal persons. And the wealthy capitalists throwing tons of money at any attempt at life extension and immortality, no matter how far-fetched and ridiculous.
“And the wealthy capitalists throwing tons of money at any attempt at life extension and immortality, no matter how far-fetched and ridiculous.”
Right, because THAT is the reason people want to live longer, so that wealth isn’t spread out again. Seriously?!?!?
The “immortal corporation” can indeed be a problem, but that is a result of the legal fiction of treating a corporation as a person, which is not an inherent part of capitalism, and which I am very much against.
Can a “corporation” go to jail if the “corporation” breaks the law? No, it cannot.
Corporations are not greedy, they are philanthropic, they are not LOTS of things, because they are not actually people. MOST of the problems that “immortal corporations” create would go away if they weren’t treated, legally, like people.
I am very much in favor of making the officers (and/or board) of a corporation legally responsible for the actions committed by said corporation.
Personally, I always assumed that the federation didn’t have “money” due to replicators making everything so cheap to produce that it would crash the economy if try to charge anything. When a meal cost less than a thousandth of a cent to create trying to keep track of currency would cost way too much for the value added to the economy, so I assume that the Federation doesn’t have a form of personal currency and most people get by with various forms bartering. Though canonically the Federation does have a form of macro currency to trade with other powers.
No “pure” economic model is fair or even viable. Capitalism, socialism, communism (extreme socialism), feudalism, etc., all have both advantages and major problems in their pure form. The best systems are combinations that take advantage of the best parts of all systems.
Some capitalistic parts so intelligent people with ambition who want better things have the incentives to be creative and create better things. “Money” will never go away; we will always need some way to trade things of value, and to reward people who are willing and able to go above and beyond the bare minimum. But also some socialistic parts where common people and the environment are protected; no one has to starve to death because a robot took their job or they have less than average intelligence or a close relative is diagnosed with cancer; and private corporations aren’t allowed to dump toxic chemicals into the earth that kill humans and wildlife.
We are well past the point where automation and technology allow for the generation of basic needs for every person on the planet with minimal work. Instead, people in 3rd world countries starve because warlords are squabbling over who is in charge (Isreal/Palestine is included here) while people in 1st world countries create more and more “Bullshit Jobs” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs), where people do pointless work for a mandatory 40-hours every week just to justify their meager pay.
“Isreal/Palestine is included here”
No, that’s not the problem there. The problem there is that Muslims cannot change the Koran (changing it is blasphemy, subject to death), and the Koran commands the killing of Jews (explicitly – the references are quite easy to look up on the internet… or just look at the public statements from Islamic fundamentalist groups that follow and reference those explicit teachings).
Sure, there are the usual other problems ALSO, but there is literally nothing that can be offered that will allow peace – the “everything you claim to want” offer has been made, TWICE, and both times, it was turned down with immediate violence.
Peace will only happen there when at least one of the two people groups involved no longer exists, either by genocide (the method being publicly and explicitly advocated by the Palestinians for several decades now) or some lesser form that involves a lot less direct murder but still utterly destroys the “people group” as extant today (say, converting all Palestinians to another faith – even if it were spontaneous and without any force at all, their society would no longer be recognizable compared to the one today).
“Peace will only happen there when at least one of the two people groups involved no longer exists, either by genocide (the method being publicly and explicitly advocated by the Palestinians for several decades now) or some lesser form that involves a lot less direct murder but still utterly destroys the “people group” as extant today (say, converting all Palestinians to another faith – even if it were spontaneous and without any force at all, their society would no longer be recognizable compared to the one today).”
An asteroid the size of Manhattan lands smack dab on Jerusalem and completely annihilates Israel, Palestine, and the surrounding million square miles. There’s a humongous hole several miles deep, immediately filled by water. The Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean are permanently joined by a new channel. Then God says, “Alright you fuckers, you want to fight over it now, go ahead.”
You are conflating what the *majority* of Palestinians want with the violence caused by a very small minority. Also, the “everything you claim to want” offers really weren’t that.
The best solution is the “two-state solution”. Carve out a new independent country for the Palestinians. But neither side is really happy with it. There are still Palestinians alive who remember how they were forcibly relocated and their homes and businesses stolen so they could be given to Jews; they want their original land back. And Jews who want the entire land for themselves. Extremists on *both sides* always perform actions that kill any deals before they are signed.
As for the violence in the Quran, have you read the Christian Bible or Jewish Torah recently? Quite a few explicit orders to kill certain types of people. So-called “Christians” have used Bible verses to justify theft, chattel slavery, and murder for as long as they have been in power. Extremists will always use something to justify their atrocities; some use religious texts.
“You are conflating what the *majority* of Palestinians want with the violence caused by a very small minority.”
You clearly have not bothered to check what the approval ratings for that “very small minority” are.
Israel is finally going to wipe out Hamas… but in short order, there will be another group just like them in charge (there are several to choose from), because Hamas still has well over 70% approval rating, EVEN NOW, after months of military action that is very hard on the people in Gaza.
They are what the majority of Palestinians want, as evidenced by every single attempt at polling them, including their own votes.
“The best solution is the “two-state solution””
Done, from day 1. That is the solution we already have, and had since the beginning. Jordan is the other state, originally called “Transjordon”.
Jordan will no longer accept Palestinians (who were exactly the same Arab people group just 3 generations ago), because when they did do that, the Palestinians they took in attempted a coup, among other highly violent actions.
Also, we should hire Egypt to build our border wall – ever seen the wall between Egypt and Gaza? The other Arabs absolutely refuse to take in the Palestinian Arabs, their own neighbors. Why is that?
“There are still Palestinians alive who remember how they were forcibly relocated and their homes and businesses stolen so they could be given to Jews”
No, there are still Palestinians alive who remember being told to leave so that the Arab armies could wipe out the Jews. And, as always gets left out by people holding your position, there have been a HUGE number of Jews in other Middle Eastern nations who were forcibly and violently ejected (or just killed) and their stuff taken by the locals.
“As for the violence in the Quran, have you read the Christian Bible or Jewish Torah recently?”
Yes, actually, I have. There are, in fact, a very, very few verses that do indeed explicitly call for violence like that. And guess what? Those people groups no longer exist to be violent towards.
You are correct that extremists will use whatever texts and other excuses they can find, but when every major sect of the world’s third largest religion all agree that 1) changing the text is blasphemy (for which the punishment is death) and 2) that unalterable text calls for the faithful to kill Jews, well, that’s not “extremists”. That is the mainstream, completely normal interpretation.
“Extremists on *both sides* always perform actions that kill any deals before they are signed.”
The first time Israel offered the Palestinians everything they asked for, they refused and launched the first “Intifada”. The participation rate in that was MASSIVE. This is not “extremists”, this is “man on the street”.
Same with October 7th. The participation rate in taking captives, beating and raping captives, hiding captives, was HUGE. The clamor in the streets was VERY VERY much in favor. This is not “extremists”, this is “man on the street”.
And that was AFTER Israel had performed a unilateral “two state solution”, withdrawing entirely from Gaza for nearly 2 decades and put up with rocket fire from that territory that NO OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH would put up with.
Literally (as in “non-figuratively”), one side of the hostilities openly and publicly advocates for genocide, while the other side has had the capability to commit genocide for literally decades and refused to do so, and you are siding with the ones openly calling for genocide. Or at the very, very least, swallowing their blatant BS PR whole and asking for more.
tl;dr
“Genocide is good when European colonizers do it.”
“Palestinians should give up their land and leave it to the European colonizers.”
“Islam bad, Christianity good.”
You’re really playing the Imperialist Hits today. Hope you’re getting paid for all that work.
tl:dr
“I regurgitate genocidal maniacs’ PR without engaging my brain or checking ANY facts AT ALL”
The completely imaginary version of me in your mind that has almost no overlap with me in any way at all is definitely playing all the imperialist hits today, just like it does every day that I disagree with you.
I should just agree with you and the OPENLY AND EXPLICITLY GENOCIDAL people you advocate for so that you don’t disapprove of me, right?
Fortunately, my commitment to opposing genocide is strong enough that I can live without your approval so that I can continue opposing genocide.
Here is a very unpleasant truth: the most likely outcome for the Palestinians is, in fact, genocide. The only question is, “Who does it?” Does Israel finally give in to their demand for genocide and just turn it the other way? Or do the Palestinians succeed at committing genocide against the Jews (while most of the world watches and cheers), only to be wiped out in short order by their neighbors (while the world utterly ignores it, like they do all the other mass-killing in the Middle East that doesn’t involve Israel)?
I WANT a different solution to the problem than either of those, but that would require the Palestinians to give up on their demands for genocide, which seems unlikely, since they’ve been quite consistent and insistent on it for at 50 years.
A two-state solution will never work, because both sides want to control the exact same land, because they consider it holy. Palestine just says out loud what Israel wisely chooses not to admit (most of the time). They’re slipping lately.
Considering that Israel has, TWICE, offered to completely and fully meet the demands being made of them, and the Palestinians rejected that with societal-level violence both times, that is not a remotely accurate description of the situation.
“But also some socialistic parts where common people and the environment are protected; ”
Socialist countries have a noticeably worse track record than capitalist ones, on both of those points.
“private corporations aren’t allowed to dump toxic chemicals into the earth that kill humans and wildlife.”
Of course not! In socialist countries, *that’s the government’s job*, and they do it WELL. Go compare environmental issues in Russia or China with… well, almost anywhere else on the planet.
The larger problem that you aren’t considering is that socialism is inherently and unavoidably *authoritarian*. Most of the problems people claim to have with “capitalism” boil down to corporations being insufficiently restrained to good behaviour (see below#), but in any authoritarian government, the government itself has all of those same problems *with even less constraint*.
# The complaint is not without merit! But knowing the problem does not solve the problem. The vast majority of “solutions” to that problem that I have seen just centralize it to the government, which is then restrained by…. uh…. um…. yeah, somehow, that part is not talked about. Again, looking at China or Russia or other socialist countries, their track record on the issues you claim socialism is good for are **horrible**.
You are cherry-picking bad examples and proving nothing. Specifically picking extremist forms of some systems to prove a more moderate form won’t work. First, “Communism” is an extremist form of Socialism, which is something I already specifically said was bad. Second, neither China, Russia, nor any other country are actually “communist”. A true communist society can’t exist in anything larger than a village or commune. Some countries *claim* to be communist, but in reality they are brutal authoritarian dictatorships.
Socialism is no more unavoidably authoritarian than any other system. The difference between large private corporations owning and running everything without oversight and a government owning and running everything without oversight is non-existent.
Again, the best system is a combination of these two (and others). Nothing you’ve posted refutes that.
“You are cherry-picking bad examples and proving nothing.”
Feel free to give other examples, then. Venezuela isn’t Communist, and that’s turning about quite similar, just with fewer years for the crap to pile up. Feel free to “cherry pick” the other direction – give me your best example of the wonders of socialism.
“First, “Communism” is an extremist form of Socialism, which is something I already specifically said was bad. Second, neither China, Russia, nor any other country are actually “communist”.”
Wow, not often you see direct and explicit self-contradiction in literally adjacent statements. And you squeezed in a No True Scotsman, just for bonus points! Very, very impressive!
“Socialism is no more unavoidably authoritarian than any other system.”
You have a very, very strange idea of what “socialism” is, then. In practice, socialism is dictatorship – completely authoritarian. The only significant exception to this was, in fact, China, which managed to be more or an oligarchy for a time (also very authoritarian), though they have now slipped back into dictatorship.
Well, you could include the EU, I suppose, which is more of a bureaucratic form of socialism – they don’t have quite the *power* to be truly authoritarian, though they are trying pretty hard (see the stuff going on with farmers over there, for just the most recent example among many).
Again, you think I’m cherry picking? Feel free to offer counter-examples – I don’t like being wrong, but I love being shown somewhere that I am wrong so that I can fix it and stop being wrong. Show me!
No true Scotsman: Plenty of groups have communist systems (notably, lots of “communes” in Israel). But these are small villages / encampments; not large countries. None of the elite of the Soviet Union or China, etc. ever followed the communist model. They tried to force their citizens into a mutated version of the model, while they themselves lived lives of luxury off the backs of the citizens. There’s nothing communist about that. It’s all authoritarian dictatorship. Then when it was obvious to all that their attempt was failing, the switched to a fake Democracy. Modern Russia is no more “Democratic” than the USSR was “Communist”. Both were Dictatorships trying to hide behind a fake system.
My definition of Socialism: I use the definition of Socialism as used in Europe and the Dictionary. You appear to be using the definitions of Socialism as spouted by the talking heads on certain opinion shows. Just like with Communism, there aren’t any truly pure Socialist countries; all modern countries have aspects of Capitalism built into their models. Or are you going to claim I’m using a “no true Scotsman” fallacy again?
Example of non-authoritarian socialist country: Finland comes immediately to mind, along with the other Scandinavian countries, which *consistently* rank at the tops of worldwide “happiest country” polls. Again, they aren’t truly “Socialist” and are classified as “Social Democracies”, but if anyone in the USA were to propose anything even remotely close to Finland’s high tax rates and very generous social service system the screams of “SOCIALISM!!!” and “WEALTH DISTRIBUTION!!!!” would be deafening.
Finland is far more of a Socialist country than China is a Communist country.
“They tried to force their citizens into a mutated version of the model, while they themselves lived lives of luxury off the backs of the citizens.”
Functionally, that *IS* the model. Everywhere it is tried at the national scale, this is what results.
” Plenty of groups have communist systems (notably, lots of “communes” in Israel). But these are small villages / encampments; not large countries.”
PRECISELY!!! Where participation is *VOLUNTARY*, it can actually work!
But that’s not what we are talking about here. We are talking about national-level systems – they have no “opt out” other than leaving the country, which is why they almost universally restrict travel outside of their country.
“Both were Dictatorships trying to hide behind a fake system. ”
I completely agree with that as well! The difference is that I notice that every attempt at “socialism” either starts as that or becomes it almost instantly.
“My definition of Socialism: I use the definition of Socialism as used in Europe and the Dictionary.”
Oh, I recognize that definition. I can even use it.
But it’s a useless, theoretical definition that never exists in the real world. When I want to have a theoretical discussion about how many Karl Marxs could fit on the head of a pin, I’ll use that definition.
“You appear to be using the definitions of Socialism as spouted by the talking heads on certain opinion shows.”
I use the definition of “what attempts at socialism turn out as, as best I can tell from all the actual examples in the world”. I don’t know which “opinion shows” you might be referencing, since I don’t watch that stuff.
“Example of non-authoritarian socialist country:”
Without even reading, I know exactly where you were going. The only good examples of “socialism” in the whole world, the Scandinavian countries.
The problem with that is that they themselves, with well-reasoned arguments, say they are not socialist!
OK, now, let me read that paragraph… yep, exactly as predicted. Oh, hey, you make a couple of decent points near the end – nice! You even acknowledge that they aren’t actually socialist… while… using them as an example of socialism. OK. Seriously, you did that in the last post, too – get your argumentation to be self-consistent, or people will write you off as an idiot.
Your point about the US is absolutely correct. Considering that their standard of living is lower than the vast, overwhelming majority of the US from decades of way overpaying into their government, I think that’s a good stance for the US to take, and judging by their “happiness” when they move to other places in the world, it would appear to have a large genetic/cultural factor (as they were until very, very recently extremely homogeneous countries, both genetically and socially speaking). But, if you wan something sort of LIKE socialism, only it actually works, that is certainly the best model that I am aware of by a LARGE margin.
Your point about China not being “communist” and just being a plain “dictatorship” is making my point for me. EVERY major attempt at socialism is like that! That’s how authoritarianism turns out, and socialism is inherently authoritarian.
The easiest definition of socialism *as actually practiced* on the world stage is “dictatorship with a better paintjob and enthusiastic academic cheerleaders.”
1: I’ve noticed that Defenders of Capitalism almost invariably use outdated information; they’re arguing with Cold War rhetoric, THREE AND A HALF DECADES after the fall of communism. Russia has not been communist for a very, very long time (And it has NEVER been “socialist.” Socialism is the Scandinavian countries. There’s a difference between socialism and communism, and the difference is spelled “K-a-l-i-s-h-n-i-k-o-v”).
China started introducing capitalism under Deng Xiaoping; after his death the CCP declared, “we’re done paying lip service to Marx. We’re in charge, do what we say, and hey western corporations, c’mon over and enjoy the cheap labor!” China is no more “communist” than North Korea (the “People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea”) is democratic.
2: No, the Koran does not explicitly call for the murder of Jews. The problem is not Islam, the problem is Hamas, as well as the Arab League. Everything that the Left fears that the alt-Right will bring about, Hamas brought to Gaza a few decades ago. The Palestinians live under a horrible theocratic tyranny, in which freedom of speech is brutally suppressed, women have zero rights, and every civilian is treated as expendable cannon fodder – not just because Hamas’ leadership considers it a “holy duty” to murder Jews, but because Hamas’ leadership receives massive financial rewards for engaging in their “holy duty.” Gaza is the Islamic equivalent of Gilead from the Handmaid’s Tale. Gaza is what happens when the sort of people who become televangelists gain power.
Notice that I’m not blaming Israel either. The Palestinians are literally living weapons, created by the Arab League generations ago to hurt the Jews, because the Arabs kept trying – and failing – to destroy Israel. The Palestinians are victims of the rest of the world, and the constant anti-Israeli rhetoric distracts from how Palestinians are born so that pampered foreigners can feel good about themselves as they repeat the latest versions of the ancient “Blood Libel,” AND while they help perpetuate the suffering of the people they feel sorry for, like PETA but with human beings.
1a) I didn’t say they are communist *now*, but they *were*, and their track record on environmentalism and treatment of the workers WHILE THEY WERE COMMUNIST was HORRIBLE. That they are no longer communist this minute does that change that.
1b) China is a dictatorship. They pretend at some level of capitalism, but people that aren’t part of the CCP are still largely property, just like under communism. It’s definitely still a completely centralized economy. That they no longer pay lip service to Marx doesn’t mean that they are significantly better than they ever were.
1c) The differences between socialism and communism are… eh, not much. Venezuela was never “communist”, only “socialist”… and it’s working about fairly similar, just without trying to the “export the revolution” part. Fascism is “national socialism”, communism is “international socialism”, and they both have their unique bonus problems because of that, but the “socialism” part is bad in both and in places that don’t add either qualifier on the front.
2a) Literally, the Koran explicitly calls for the murder of Jews – Islamic terrorist groups quote several different passages regularly, and they are exceedingly explicit. Islamic clerics not part of Hamas or other such groups put out statements about those passages, as well. They are not hidden. But feel free to tell all the Muslims what their texts REALLY mean. I’m sure you know better than the vast majority of their clerics and holy men, right?
2b) The rest of point 2 isn’t bad (that last paragraph in particular is PERFECT), except that you leave out the *plethora* of groups that could easily take Hamas’ place and the very, very high approval rating Hamas has among the Gazans *EVEN NOW*. You can certainly argue (and I would agree!) that the high approval rating is due to universal indoctrination and brainwashing since birth… but that doesn’t change the high approval rating any. When you have a solution to that which won’t be instantly shouted down by the rest of the world as “genocide” or something similar, do let me know, eh? I would love to hear one.
2c) And WHY do the Arabs keep putting so much effort into destroying the Jews? I mean, I would say that’s because they are explicitly told to do so in their holy text (**that’s the reason THEY give**, after all), but since you have rejected that reason (and called all of their clerics liars), what do you think drives them?
(Sure, the *leadership* of those countries has all the normal drives of corrupt politiciany-types just like ours, but the *people* support it as well. Actually, the leadership not being “true believer” types is finally working in our favor since the Abraham Accords.)
” No, the Koran does not explicitly call for the murder of Jews.”
Actually it does. It also repeatedly refers to Jews as the evildoers, apes, and swine. Originating because Muhammed was at war with the jewish tribes of Qaynuqa, Nadir, and Qurayza, at the time of the Hegira in Medina. Largely because they did not follow his demands that he be recognized as a prophet.
“…The people of Moses took to them, after him, of their ornaments a Calf — a mere body that lowed. Did they not see it spoke not to them, neither guided them upon any way? Yet they took it to them, and were evildoers. (7:145-146)”
“People of the Book, do you blame us for any other cause than that we believe in God, and what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down before, and that most of you are ungodly?…
Whomsoever God has cursed, and with whom He is wroth, and made some of them apes and swine, and worshippers of idols — they are worse situated, and have gone further astray from the right way. (5:64-65)”
The Quran also says there is a divine authorization to kill jews.
“And He brought down those of the People of the Book who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror in their hearts; some you slew, some you made captive. And He bequeathed upon you their lands, their habitations, and their possessions, and a land you never trod. God is powerful over everything. (33:26)”
It also does say so specifically in the Hadith. In case you’re not familiar, the Hadith is Muhammed’s words and actions and representing the chief source for knowing his authoritative precedent (aka, Sunna, the portion of Muslim law based on Muhammed’s words, which is accepted with the Koran as authoritative by Muslims).
“Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind the rocks and the trees, but the rocks and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him — except for the gharqad tree, which is one of the trees of the Jews.”
For anyone who wants to check more into the subject and wants a starting point, here’s a page offering some links to what the Quran says on the subject of religious tolerance:
https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/says_about/religious-tolerance.html
The verse numbers on that page link to that site’s translation of the text for easier context-checking.
It also provides snarky commentary on some of the verses, in case that’s something you want.
Russia certainly wasn’t socialist or communist after the ascension of Stalin, if ever. China, either. Socialism is in fact by definition *non* authoritarian, since it requires *popular* control of the means of production. If it’s an authoritarian state, it’s not socialist.
“Socialism is in fact by definition *non* authoritarian, since it requires *popular* control of the means of production.”
So…. which country has ever met your definition? hint: none.
Using the No True Scotsman fallacy to defend the idea of socialism is nice for the true believers, but *in real world history*, every country that has *claimed* to be socialist, every *attempt* at socialism, has been fully and completely authoritarian.
And the reason for this is easy to understand: who decides what that factory makes? Get all of “the people” together to decide, and you’ll have no decision! In practice, somebody TAKES the authority. If it isn’t authoritarian when it starts, it is authoritarian 5 minutes later.
Your entirely theoretical and frankly absurdist claim of what socialism is is not useful to any real-world discussion, because it doesn’t exist, because it CAN’T exist in any meaningful scale.
My counter to “that’s not real socialism” is “They were TRYING to be real socialism, and the body count was XXXXX, so can we stop TRYING to have socialism, please?”
“Get all of “the people” together to decide, and you’ll have no decision! In practice, somebody TAKES the authority. If it isn’t authoritarian when it starts, it is authoritarian 5 minutes later.”
This is trivially false. Democracy functions via individuals selecting representatives, aka both GIVING power and maintaining the ability to withdraw that support. Individuals that have been given the power to organize, and who then use that power to do so, inherently does so with the permission of “the people”. This doesn’t prevent the elected individual from abusing their position, but mechanisms for removal and potentially punishment allows the majority of these systems to operate non-authoritarian-ly the majority of the time.
It’s not free to achieve, it requires a highly educated populace and maintaining minimally biased information sources (both of these things feed into each other), but there have been many nations that met and meet this definition. Some of the Scandinavian countries, for instance, still stand as strongly non-authoritarian socialist nations.
L
“This is trivially false.”
The false-ness is trivially easy to prove: give me an example of a country where that’s not what happened.
(Hey, reference number, what, 7? to the Scandinavian countries in this thread! THEY CLAIM, to anyone who will listen, that they are not socialist, and their arguments for such are well reasoned.)
I’ll wait.
“(Hey, reference number, what, 7? to the Scandinavian countries in this thread! THEY CLAIM, to anyone who will listen, that they are not socialist, and their arguments for such are well reasoned.)”
Correct. It was stated by several scandinavian countries, and was most notably stated by the Prime Minister of Denmark (Lars Løkke Rasmussen) to Bernie Sanders in 2015 that the Nordic states’ social models are NOT socialist – they are definitively market economies.
“I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Here’s a lengthy speech he actually made about how the Nordic model actually works and how people who claim it’s socialism are incorrect.
https://youtu.be/MgrJnXZ_WGo
Everything I said was in relationship to building and maintaining a functioning democracy. The reason Scandinavian countries were referenced is because they have maintained a high average level of education for quite some time, making them less authoritarian by extension of an informed body of voters.
So you would allow countries that are not socialist by definition to claim the label, leaving it impossible to discuss socialism in theory? What then would you call a non-authoritarian society in which people democratically controlled production and were rewarded fairly for their work?
“What then would you call a non-authoritarian society in which people democratically controlled production and were rewarded fairly for their work?”
I don’t know. Never had the need to come up with a name, since none seem to have ever existed.
But feel free to prove me wrong! I dislike being wrong, but I LOVE knowing when I am wrong, so I can change my mind on something and *stop being wrong*. (Warning: having that attitude for decades results in no longer being wrong very often…. but hey, it does still happen upon occasion.)
So, to prove me wrong, all you need to do is actually give me a country name, one that is non-authoritarian AND socialist.
The only “examples” I know of are the Scandinavian countries… except that they are not socialist by anyone’s definition of socialist.
So, let’s see *your* list!
(Bharda has thus far absolutely refused to answer any questions even vaguely like that. It’s almost entertaining in the level of BS she’s spouting. Don’t be like Bharda.)
“So you would allow countries that are not socialist by definition to claim the label, leaving it impossible to discuss socialism in theory?”
My position is that *attempting to create a socialist society results in authoritarian tyranny*. I have a long list of countries to back up that position.
I have theories about *why* that is the result, but that is both MUCH harder to prove and really not that important.
You can theorize about socialism all you like (really, go ahead – people need hobbies). The real world results don’t care about your theories (or mine, or anyone else’s).
You seem to be claiming that honest attempts at socialism inevitably result in totalitarian governments, when I think it’s far more likely that the sort of people who install totalitarian governments are the kind of people who will not hesitate to deceive people for their own ends.
I say that no such country has ever existed, and that all the countries that have claimed the label of socialist did not meet the definition, and were instead created by dishonest authoritarians who believed that they could not convince the populace to go along with their plans to install a totalitarian government, and thus co-opted socialist rhetoric to convince the population to support their cause.
“I say that no such country has ever existed, and that all the countries that have claimed the label of socialist did not meet the definition, and were instead created by dishonest authoritarians who believed that they could not convince the populace to go along with their plans to install a totalitarian government, and thus co-opted socialist rhetoric to convince the population to support their cause.”
How many times that have to happen before you agree with my position, that it is inherent and unavoidable in the socialism?
100% fail rate, in exactly the same way every time and with quite a few attempts, is highly suggestive, after all.
Even if the answer is “never”, can we at least get to “we shouldn’t TRY to attempt socialism, because it’s always charlatans trying to implement dictatorship instead”?
The difference between those positions is academic, so I at least wouldn’t argue over the distinction.
I hold that it’s the people advocating for violent revolution that should be considered suspect, regardless of what system they intend to impose. And they’re going to wear whatever mask seems most convincing. Were someone to conceive an even more appealing social structure than socialism, the covert authoritarians would abandon the trappings of socialism in favor of the new system.
The best thing in any context is always going to attract the most counterfeits. Should we avoid the best brands because there’s the motivation to produce fakes? You have to weigh the benefit of receiving a genuine article versus the risk of receiving a counterfeit, and carefully consider the source.
Should we suspect that all sheep are secretly wolves?
“Were someone to conceive an even more appealing social structure than socialism, the covert authoritarians would abandon the trappings of socialism in favor of the new system.”
A system that cannot manage to exist without the “covert authoritarians” taking it over **every single time** is a bad system.
“Should we avoid the best brands because there’s the motivation to produce fakes?”
That only works if there are actual examples of said “best brand” to produces fakes of.
“You have to weigh the benefit of receiving a genuine article versus the risk of receiving a counterfeit, and carefully consider the source.”
Now, see, THAT I can agree with. So far, the “risk of receiving a counterfeit” is absolutely 100%.
Try to get “real” socialism, get authoritarian tyranny, every time. How high does the risk need to be before we stop trying to get “real” socialism and admit that it’s always authoritarian tyranny?
There is not a “best brand” that is being “counterfeited”. There’s a horrible brand with lots of dishonest PR, and every time someone gets one of them, when the actual product is horrible, they say, “Oh, that’s not really one of ours, it’s a counterfeit.”
“Should we suspect that all sheep are secretly wolves?”
When you check every supposed “sheep” you’ve ever heard of, and ALL of them are actually “wolves”, ***at some point***, YES.
How many more “sheep” do we need to check? Because I’m tired of the body count.
“And WHY do the Arabs keep putting so much effort into destroying the Jews? I mean, I would say that’s because they are explicitly told to do so in their holy text (**that’s the reason THEY give**, after all), but since you have rejected that reason (and called all of their clerics liars), what do you think drives them?”
That’s actually fairly trivial. Actually reading of the Koran doesn’t support that interpretation, and in fact there are segments that speak directly to the protections that should be afforded to individuals of different faith, protections that specifically mention Christianity and Judaism. Muslims that claim that are no more trustworthy in their reasoning than American Evangelicals preaching the prosperity gospel.
Prior to the founding of Israel there were hundreds of thousands of Jews in many of these nations, and they had been living there for centuries. They weren’t all murdered, they weren’t under constant oppression, they could own property and run businesses.
As for why, it’s because the Middle East has a long history of grudge culture. Most groups, including different Arab groups and the different factions of Jewish people prior to the founding of Israel, don’t like each other. The Jews were only focused out from the crowd due to western actions, mostly those connected to British Imperialism and their very messy extraction from the region.If you actually look into the interactions between Arab nations they haven’t stopped, a portion of them are just willing to work together from time to time against Israel.
It’s also because Israel is a holy site for multiple religions. When Israel was partially given to the Jews, and then the other half was forcibly taken by a combination of Israeli militants and the early IDF it roused and allied a large number of otherwise opposing groups by uniformally pissing everyone off about the same thing at the same time.
“That’s actually fairly trivial. Actually reading of the Koran doesn’t support that interpretation”
Hey, all you piker-n00b “Islamic” scholars out there! MonochromaticPrism is the real authority on this, so stop pretending you know your own holy scripture and listen to the all-knowing MonochromaticPrism!
“Muslims that claim that are no more trustworthy in their reasoning than American Evangelicals preaching the prosperity gospel.”
And if they were a similar percentage of Islamic scholars as preachers of the prosperity gospel, you would have a good point (shysters and con-men will happily use any religion, after all).
They are not.
“When Israel was partially given to the Jews, and then the other half was forcibly taken by a combination of Israeli militants and the early IDF it”
That’s a funny way to say, “When all the surrounding countries tried to annihilate Israel and got their butts handed to them multiple times,” because that’s how that land changed hands. 5 bullies jumped a little kid and then complained to the teacher when he beat their butts, and you take the bullies’ side.
“Prior to the founding of Israel there were hundreds of thousands of Jews in many of these nations, and they had been living there for centuries.”
Yes! Yes there were! “not oppressed” is a pretty serious stretch, but other than that, you are correct.
And in the last 100 years or a bit more (not just “after the founding of Israel”), they have been violently ejected or murdered. The surrounding Arab countries have all become Judeinrein (that’s German for “Jew free”), while Israel has, what, 20% Arab citizens, not including the Palestinians? Citizens that vote and and have full citizenship rights (even MORE rights, arguably, and they are not subject to mandatory military service).
It correlates better with “increasing communication and travel from modern technology” better than “the creation of Israel”.
” the protections that should be afforded to individuals of different faith”
Got a little mob-speak, there – it’s not “protections”, it’s “protection money”. Pay the jizya, infidel! Be a shame if something… HAPPENED to you.
Any system better that those which currently exist or have existed in the past is going to be theoretical, by definition. If you exclude theoretical systems from discussion before it even begins, you render the discussion meaningless.
“Any system better that those which currently exist or have existed in the past is going to be theoretical, by definition”
Many attempts at creating socialist societies have been made. They have resulted in authoritarian tyranny.
What is your theory for creating a socialist society WITHOUT it falling into authoritarian tyranny? If you won’t deal with actual results, “you render the discussion meaningless.”
I think the most successful approach would be to start small, like with a single company. Flatten the hierarchy, make the employees more equal, in terms of control, ownership, and compensation. If such an arrangement is successful and competitive, I would except other companies to adopt it, or be displaced in the market by ones that do.
And my impression is that companies that have chosen to pursue less exploitative arrangements have seen productivity soar, retention exceed the industry average, and profits increase substantially, despite powerful people very publicly claiming that such efforts will inevitably fail, and that no company can survive or compete while treating its employees fairly. Valve and Gravity Payments both come to mind as good examples.
Eventually, I would expect more socialist companies to so dominate the market that the normal expectations around labor to shift, such that nobody would consider working for an exploitative company.
The laws may favor one form of economic system over another, but since I believe that socialism is a more natural fit for a democracy than capitalism, I also believe it should be possible to replace capitalism in a democratic country with socialism without significant change to the government. I would expect any laws that favor capitalism to slowly be replaced as socialism proves more effective, despite the laws being biased against it. In general, increasing democratic participation, and strengthening labor, whether through laws or unions, should accelerate the process.
“Flatten the hierarchy, make the employees more equal, in terms of control, ownership, and compensation.”
Such attempts have been made. The more publicly they are made, the more spectacular the failure, but I think there have been a few quiet attempts that have done at least OK for a while.
“Eventually, I would expect more socialist companies to so dominate the market that the normal expectations around labor to shift, such that nobody would consider working for an exploitative company.”
And yet, that hasn’t happened. Not even close. At what point do you re-evaluate your theory?
“I would expect any laws that favor capitalism to slowly be replaced as socialism proves more effective”
The problem is that what you are talking about is *entirely voluntary*, and once the laws start changing to favor it, then it’s not, anymore.
And then you’re on the road to autocratic tyranny, as has happened every other place it’s not voluntary.
When it’s voluntary, there are a few successes! Still not many, but at least the failures generally have no body count associated.
I gave two examples of successful companies with unusual organizational or compensatory structures. Surely you can name actual failures, rather than gesture broadly.
What then about laws favoring capitalism? Should we not attempt to change those, to make the environment neutral, so that the best system, whatever it might be, can win in the market?
“Surely you can name actual failures, rather than gesture broadly.”
FAIR! I’ve been demanding that of every one else, after all.
With just a quick search, I can’t find any at the moment, but I can definitely say there have been headlines several times in the last 10 years about companies that claim to be socialist or based on “social justice” going out of business. I should probably start making a list – that would be more honest and “good faith” of me for arguments like this.
I will point out, though, that your examples are… well, Gravity, at least, is not very socialist, from what I can glean from their website and their “about” entries in things. They do, in fact, show that better compensation and better working conditions lead to be better employees and better performance.
Better and more public example than yours: Toyota. Now, this is going on memory, so I could have the details wrong, but the salary of the CEO of Toyota was capped at, what, 10 times the salary of the lowest paid employee, or something?
I think that kind of thing is, in fact, a *very good idea*! I just don’t want the state having any power over it, as the track record of the state mandating stuff like that is *horrible*. (“minimum wage” is a great example – the real minimum wage is always 0, and the higher your raise legal one, the more of the real one people get.)
If that’s all you’re advocating for, sure, I like it. In some cases, it will work well.
“What then about laws favoring capitalism?”
Care to give me an example of such a law that you think “favors capitalism”? Primarily, the government’s job (economically speaking) in capitalism is “enforce property rights and otherwise get out of the way”.
In fact, the kinds of things that I think are worst about our current system and lead to the most detrimental and problematic actions are largely in areas where the government DOES get more involved.
example: Medicinal pricing. One of the biggest and longest running problems in the US medical system was the way the government got involved. The reason for the HUGE “write downs” when you have insurance is that prices are *radically* altered by the Medicare/Medicaid.
To oversimplify just a little, the government says, “We’ll pay 60% of your rate”, but since companies in an actual free-market space can’t really live on 60% of their rates (that would be equivalent to 67% profit), they raise prices so that “60%” is actually closer to what their real, should-be-normal prices would be. Insurance companies then make agreements with the providers to get similar price breaks (since, hey, why not, those prices as inflated BS, anyway).
Most of the problems in medical pricing in the US are downstream from that one, MASSIVE market distortion, accumulated along with secondary and tertiary effects over 4+ decades.
The trick to look practiced at yaoi boys is to give them horrendous proportions. Fail at anatomy. Especially give ’em the “yaoi hands” – slender and… slenderman-like. Fingers that are way too long. You’re able to draw well, that’s the problem. :p
It’s not post-scarcity if anything is still scarce. Otherwise our society would be post-scarcity, because we get all the oxygen we can breathe and don’t have to pay for it. Some things in our society are non-scarce, but we still have scarcity.
Since when is Max such a trekkie that she has this obscure critique ready to go?
She is a supposedly “former” nerd, and the reference was to one of the publiicly watched “movie treks”. Also she now interacts with Sydney almost every day. I think she is now able to list nerdy hobbies as “working time” to promote unit cohesion.
I generally favor the theory that the REST of the Federation still uses money, it’s only Earth that doesn’t.
I’m also inclined to argue that Earth appears to use an elaborate system of different ration accounts for different purposes instead, and that the people of Earth have somehow forgotten that ration credits ARE money. Incredibly inefficient money, but still money.
No, it’s everyone who hasn’t been assimilated into the Fed that still uses money
Of course Star Trek is a horribly inconsistent depiction of a post-scarcity society. It spans over fifty years and has had hundreds of creators. If you want to see a good depiction of a post-scarcity society, I recommend Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels.
Maybe not OIL lamps, but liquid-fuel based lanterns are apparently still very much a thing in some parts of the world. And not even just in the extremely-cold regions where batteries don’t work properly either. Technology Connections on youtube did a whole rant about that awhile back, if anyone cares to know more.
It may not be routine illumination but an oil lamp and a box of matches in a mason jar are still viable backup lighting. I also have a thing for Coleman lanterns. If you throw a little fresh fuel in them they will often work even after sitting for years.
As emergency backup lighting, yes, absolutely. I’m talking about how there are still places in 2024 where gas-based lanterns are their primary/only light source, which is inexcusable.
The 1970 novel “Superbaby”, framed as the biography of a genetically engineered man (the project that created him went seeking DNA samples from not just geniuses, athletes, etc, but whose whose parents and grandparents were similarly gifted). In the book, the Dollar had changed from being linked to the gold standard to the cost of a kilowatt-hour, which had stabilised prices to something akin to the 1950s and ended inflation. We know better now, but it fit the times. Great book though.
Also, helicopters were as common as cars.
Kirk’s family has a farm, Picard’s has vineyard and wine making business, Sisko’s dad had a restaurant, the Ferengi deal in latinum, the TNG ship has a bar.
Just because a society is post scarcity it doesn’t mean people wouldn’t deal in luxury goods, such as meals prepared by a chef with real ingredients. Also while you could make a boat piece by piece, having a dedicated boating engineer do it guarantess a better finished product, and the boat making team could also have an artist furnish your boat with finishing touches, a historical specialist to make sure your boat looks like aparticular historical boat. The last one might be a stretch for boats, but for a car, having a specialist build you a car that is a copy of a 1952 Caddilac series 62 convertible, would be a dream for most people.
And the Star Trek society might be post scarcity on basic items, but starship fuel, hard to make metal alloys, some types of hard to convert energy and particularly complex pieces of technology might still be valuable.
Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a paper on the concept of converting to an energy-based currency.
(Current-cy *bah dum tss*)
I called it ‘dunamis,’ from the Greek. I theorized this could lead to a post scarcity economy, but importantly, I also specified that even with readily available, next-to-free goods that could be produced more-or-less entirely automatically, there still be a demand for artisanal goods, both for the human factor, and in some cases as luxury items. Essentially, works of art. There would also be a demand for _services_, tasks performed by a person. Musical performances, custom garden or architectural designs, acting, or anything involving human connection. Hospitality, for example. A robot might make a decent enough cocktail, but it isn’t going to talk about the local sports time playing bollocks last night.
“Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a paper on the concept of converting to an energy-based currency.
(Current-cy *bah dum tss*)”
Sounds sort of like bitcoin.
“A robot might make a decent enough cocktail, but it isn’t going to talk about the local sports time playing bollocks last night.”
I think the most hilarious (and unexpected) thing about AI has been that instead of it taking over physical labor jobs, it’s been getting used to take over (or at least require fewer humans in the process for it) ‘intellectual’ and ‘creative’ jobs instead.
I’m not sure if Detroit: Become Human got it REALLY wrong or really right.
(good game though)
Meh, Detroit was…a thing that happened. Neither good, no bad. The Little Caesar’s of video games. Perfectly adequate.
The only people trying to use deep learning bots for “creative or intellectual work” are those who lack the creative skills and technical chops to do it themselves, and also cannot, or will not, pay an actual creator to do it for them.
Naturally, it is very popular with Capitalists, as we saw in last year’s actors & writer’s strikes.
“Meh, Detroit was…a thing that happened. Neither good, no bad. ”
I liked it. Especially the pause screen where the AI on it got steadily more ‘human’ as the game progressed or the longer it was paused.
“The Little Caesar’s of video games.”
lol – ok that was a good one.
ps – Little Caesars is better than Papa Johns at least. Then again I live in New York where I can get real pizza any time I want. :)
i personally like the Orville’s take on currency where reputation has become the new commodity.
i mean, i don’t know how it would be implemented but it is the one giving me the most hope as it would enable meritocracy to flourish as people would want to look good and do their best, at least in the public eye.
the problem with “infinite ressources” is that it would also enable human tendecies for laziness, especially over time. that’s why i think meritocracy and acknowledgement would be one of, hopefully, many good palliative solution for this problem.
it is true that there’s always a market for something and we are driven by gains but hopefully this would be a good way to promote a healthy mindset.
but it is theoritical.
You clearly don’t remember that episode too well: reputation being the commodity means that people can downvote you into poverty that you can never recover from (because if anyone is seen helping someone with a bad ‘credit rating’ would also get downvoted)
Also, the pilot of Orville was on trial (or about to be sentenced to death) because he accidentally got a negative rating
Seems like you’re the one not remembering it very well. I’m not talking about the episode in season one. I’m talking about the season 3 episode, the very last one where Kelly describes the federation’s modus operanti and morality standards.
so… “there is no money in the Federation” was not quite accurate. its not the screwed up system we have now obviously, but “credits” are mentioned in a semi obvious “this is currency now” sense… seems like maybe they were used mostly for “luxuries” as opposed to purchasing your daily necessities. so if you wanted to “buy a boat” (something you want but don’t NEED) you used credits, but you don’t need to pay for dinner…
other possible uses for said credits: there is quite obviously still alcohol, and booze is far from a necessity. use credits to buy a drink or two. buy a FANCY meal when you want to impress a date or its a special occasion. (normal everyday sorta food is “free” from the replicator but if you want a 5 course meal involving lobster thermidor and baked alaska you’re paying for it. convert credits to local currency… visiting some planet/system that uses money? they don’t give two flying flips that you don’t, they still want their cash. convert credits to cash so you can buy your souveneirs before going back home.
there is no PHYSICAL money anymore tho. for sure. its all handled digitally and invisibly. think how people 150 years ago would view us today just waving our phones or watches at things instead of laboriously counting out slips of paper and metal discs. they might even think we don’t have money now
This is actually true. Was in college and a professor talked about some South American Indians visiting the US, and how we had free money, because they’d never seen anyone use credit cards. “You just show them your card and they give us food!”
“Yes, they take it and scan it and I pay for it…”
“But then they give it right back!” i.e. they understood exchanging paper and coins, not that the credit card represented a quality of money.
Of course, that was years ago. Phones are everywhere and they probably understand the concept much more now, microtransactions and everything.
Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t see why I’d bother to own a boat until shortly before I actually want to use one – if I just need to contact the Marina an hour in advance and then I can turn up and take out my freshly replicated boat, why would I want to have had a boat sitting somewhere for the past decade, hopefully being properly maintained, and then still have to request it be got out of storage and put into the water before I can use it?
If I were going to be using the boat routinely, then, sure, there would be value to having the physical continuity of the physical object, but when it comes to just having a special-ordered boat to take out for the first time, it doesn’t matter how long ago the boat was created…
There’s a joke about how “the two happiest days in a boat owner’s life are the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell the boat”, because maintaining them while you’re not using them requires so much work or money. If you could easily buy a boat at the beginning of the season, and sell it back at the end, that would be way less hassle than owning one year-round.
Money can be shares in the energy in a battery park somewhere.
Money can be shares of a laboriously shaped stone of a particular kind. (Lap Island)
Say you’re a young Lap Islander. You have some big ideas. And you have your eye on a special someone. But you don’t have a pebble to your name. So you go to the quarry and start carving out your future. After several weeks of hard work, you have a coin you can call your own. The neighbors drop by to evaluate it. “Not bad. Kinda lumpy in spots but hey, we were all young once.” Congratulations. You are now a man of worth. You have demonstrated your ability to focus on a task and achieve it. Something your intended will certainly appreciate.
I’m wondering how much memory is stored in parallel in Lapha’s body. Does Tenri now have memories of Big Lizard Love?
Presumably none. They’re just blank bodies for ætholiths to inhabit, specially designed for that purpose, and any unnecessary redundancy like that would probably cost extra. Might be nice to know where your body has been, and what’s been done to it while you were gone, but not strictly necessary.
It might be useful to have accessory memory. There were options available to Lapha when she was ordering her new body. It might be nice to have biological equivalent of a couple of terabytes of hard drive space.
Right, but she was worried that she would have to get a basic model, no extra features, until Garamm offered to chip in and get her a tail. It’s unclear what other extras they might have paid for. I just think onboard memory might be both too expensive and rarely valuable to make the cut, though considering that Lapha probably came up with a kidnapping plot that requires her to switch bodies several times and leave her own unpiloted for some time, maybe such a feature would have more value to her than it would to the typical ætholith.
Unrelated to all of the economy talk, I thought you did a really nice job, on the vote picture, of Maxima’s shininess.
I’m sure someone else has already said this, but considering how even in TNG onwards we see that there is some degree of currency within the Federation – some kind of credits system – in addition to other currencies when trading with Ferengi, etc, it feels more natural to me that money for purposes of basic needs – and “basic needs” covering more than just bare survival, but the means to live COMFORTABLY – is no longer a thing, but perhaps “luxury credits” are something that could be earned, and of anyone, Scotty is probably the most likely to have earned a great deal of them – ESPECIALLY considering his whole thing about overestimating how long something should take to get done, but that he gets it done faster, thus inflating his own value. It’s played somewhat for laughs and an endearing quality, but if he actually *is* being rewarded for it in any way financially, it would explain how he can “buy” a whole damn boat, and also shows that he might have been a bit more underhanded than anyone is willing to admit to his face. :P
I I find it sad that Chile didn’t get get to stay socialist, they were getting a computer driven resource distribution system up and running and now every major company has something like that.