Another day, another shooting in the US

[Jonathan Ingram]

I suppose the question of whether or not a government would turn on its population boils down to its mode of governance, style and how it feels about being held accountable. China: maybe, UK: not likely, US: not likely.

What a fine sample of pristine liberal consciousness. Look up the history of riots and hunger marches in the US.

[MintyTheCat]

You wouldn't think it possible in places as oppressed as Egypt either, but it happened.

It did, but was it largely an armed response?

[MintyTheCat]

I suppose the question of whether or not a government would turn on its population boils down to its mode of governance, style and how it feels about being held accountable. China: maybe, UK: not likely, US: not likely.

What a fine sample of pristine liberal consciousness. Look up the history of riots and hunger marches in the US.

Oh yes, the US has had some heavy times over riots and demos. Fortunately you'd expect them to be held more accountable these days - "hope" that is.

[Blinge]

It's really quite selfish, and has nothing to do with "if we have to go against the government, we'll have THESE". And even with that logic, you're dreaming if you don't think the government couldn't wipe out the most gun hoarding militia, in the U.S., in 5 minutes.

So much this.
Really this defeats half if not most of the anti-regulation argument.

[Skykid]

It's really quite selfish, and has nothing to do with "if we have to go against the government, we'll have THESE". And even with that logic, you're dreaming if you don't think the government couldn't wipe out the most gun hoarding militia, in the U.S., in 5 minutes.

So much this.
Really this defeats half if not most of the anti-regulation argument.

Not really, because there's still a question of how those governments will react in a supposedly democratic country. We just don't know. Of course they have the means to wipe out their own nation, but if it came to the crunch, would they? Would the military men who serve them follow orders to massacre people acting on the rights of their own constitution.

71,000 people marched on London on Saturday to get David Cameron out and stop Austerity cuts. One month before they were rioting in the streets right after his re-election.

I'm not saying it would be better with guns. People would die. But I agree with one Chinese dictator in that revolution begins with the barrel of a gun, because it's the only language corrupt powers understand. Protests they don't give a shit about. Bullets they might.

[MintyTheCat]

I'm not saying it would be better with guns. People would die. But I agree with one Chinese dictator in that revolution begins with the barrel of a gun, because it's the only language corrupt powers understand. Protests they don't give a shit about. Bullets they might.

But corrupt powers would be the first to sanction the use of guns, bullets and other weapons against their own people.

If you look back to the Hong-Kong protest there were talks of the government there trying to sway opinion and cause a riot to break out. It is said that criminals and paid 'volunteers' were sent in to cause trouble and thereby allowing the police and who ever else to use force.
It got to the point whereby people who attempted to cause trouble were noted and were asked by the police to have them removed.

China has a very poor standing in handling riots and demos, Skykid. You may well recall Tiananmen Square and many other examples of completely over the top responses by the Chinese state against its own people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square

Protests grant visibility. It prevents people from ignoring things. Far too many people would ignore things right up to the point that it directly affected them then they'd be all for it. This selfish ignorance is what holds most in place.

This Austerity situation goes back to 2008 as I recall yet very little was really done over in the UK. I think the general feeling was that it did not affect enough people directly. My feeling towards the UK is that people are not acting together on matters and that they are dislocated and isolated.

I happened to be back in London earlier this year and on the rare occasion I watched TV I saw another example of how the BBC likes to cover and wrap things up according to their set of directives. As I recall back in 2011 when the demos and then riots were going on up and down England it was only Russia-Today and Al Jazeera who were asking why this sort of thing could take place. I never saw any real discussion in the UK around that time but I did see lots of cover taking place and continues to take place. Rarely do I see anything in print that looks at the situation over in the UK.

In Germany there were discussions but not in the UK.

[Blinge]

It's really quite selfish, and has nothing to do with "if we have to go against the government, we'll have THESE". And even with that logic, you're dreaming if you don't think the government couldn't wipe out the most gun hoarding militia, in the U.S., in 5 minutes.

So much this.
Really this defeats half if not most of the anti-regulation argument.

Not really, because there's still a question of how those governments will react in a supposedly democratic country. We just don't know. Of course they have the means to wipe out their own nation, but if it came to the crunch, would they? Would the military men who serve them follow orders to massacre people acting on the rights of their own constitution.

I meant the gunhoarding militia in their current numbers. Or ten times that.

Even in the event of over half the population arming themselves for a bloody revolution, this wouldn't go unnoticed by any government in these supposedly democratic countries because all of them are just that, 'supposed.' You can bet your ass the leader figures would be quietly disposed of, even in the UK.

Now that same over half of a population taking to the streets for a peaceful revolution? Then we'd see the situation you mention, we'd see if the police/ military suppress or gun them down. I'm sure both of us would like to believe those orders would be disobeyed. However, having been in a crowd that tried to stand against a mounted police charge.. and taken a riot shield to the face on separate occasions.. I don't have much faith.

My money's still on the establishment forces winning over an armed populace's rebellion, as mentioned earlier in the thread those weapons give the establishment all the excuse they need to clamp down as hard as they want.

[Skykid]

@Minty

Tiananmen Square as an incident was mostly foreign propaganda. People did die in the outskirts of the city in clashes trying to enter the square, but the supposed 'massacre' within the square was mostly a fabrication by foreign news media. Did you see the recently released FBI recordings that appeared courtesy of the BBC around 5 years ago? The Americans had agents in the square who can be heard reporting that "There's not much going on".

The student bodies actually had representatives who were given chairs with government leaders to hold discussions - they were unnecessarily antagonistic, as recorded on live broadcasts, and no resolution could be reached because nobody could figure out exactly what they wanted (it wasn't 'democracy', that was also spin).

Deng Xiaoping's problem was that he was under pressure to clear the protest as he had foreign visitors in China at the time.

It's actually very interesting, and if you watch a documentary by the BBC about Deng Xiaoping that's surprisingly forthcoming, it goes into the incident in detail.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sounds a bit like Occupy Wall Street, except more angry. Thanks for the mention about FBI recordings...I'll look into that.

Very disappointed you and Minty didn't understand my earlier posts at all.

"People vs. the government via guns" is dangerous and unproductive foolishness, like Jon Ingram states. We've had plenty of successful political movements by mostly peaceful means, including the early 20th century socialists and the civil rights movement. I think a good argument can be made that some of those were buttressed by the use of arms, but usually it backfires. Off the top of my head, I don't think that armed Black Panthers did much good when they were set against fellow civil rights activists by the FBI. I don't think that the coal miners battling the National Guard did much to help. On the other hand, images of people with firearms (or even fire hoses) against peaceful demonstrators has always been a catalyst to action here. The Bonus Marchers did alright (the second time around). Shay's Rebellion, all the way back at the sunrise of the nation, got put down. Of course peaceful demonstration doesn't always work; Major Ridge and John Ross didn't have much leeway in protecting the Cherokee against the government, but they didn't get wiped out either.

More to the point, the only people who seriously believe that a popular violent uprising is going to fix America's problems are, as far as I can tell, a certain portion of right-wingers. They're useful insofar as they give the left a bargaining chip, but we really don't need the instability that brings.

@ Minty: Stop trying to put words in my mouth. There are plenty of sane and responsible gun owners. I don't believe that German law emphasizes guilt by association or trying people for the crimes of others. If somebody is able to demonstrate a variety of things - need, suitability, the right mindset, and compliance with good practices - the only argument left against letting them have a weapon would be denying that their personal rights are overrided by some other consideration, which I don't see being reasonable. You might as well argue that we ought to take people's fists away due to the "pressing public need" to maintain peace in all cases. We can't give absolute guarantees of safety, so instead public policy has to make a good compromise between the competing interests.

[BryanM]

More to the point, the only people who seriously believe that a popular violent uprising is going to fix America's problems are, as far as I can tell, a certain portion of right-wingers. They're useful insofar as they give the left a bargaining chip, but we really don't need the instability that brings.

Somethingawful chronicled the battles of such patriots who love their country so much they want to forcibly take it over and rule it like kings.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hilarious! Made my day. Good to know SA is much more fun than getting stung in the eye!

We've had years of the "government fearing the people" and now we've got police treating America's street corners like shooting galleries. (Also the DHS, so it's hard to completely disentangle how terrorism plays into the story, but it's there.)

[Skykid]

Somethingawful chronicled the battles of such patriots who love their country so much they want to forcibly take it over and rule it like kings.

Very funny piece of satire, although in some ways I find it disingenuous to those genuinely opposed to being oppressed. Although it did indeed make me laugh I wouldn't like to think such a defeatist mentality was the norm, or else everyone is really fucked.

Sounds a bit like Occupy Wall Street, except more angry. Thanks for the mention about FBI recordings...I'll look into that.

You may or may not be able to see this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lfcz6

The programme is called China's Capitalist Revolution. As you can see the last time it aired on TV was six years ago, which is very unusual considering the repeat nature of BBC programming. When I first watched it I was VERY surprised by the candidness of it, to the point where I didn't know how agenda-driven media actually allowed it to air. I certainly didn't expect evidence to be provided that the Tiananmen Square incident was spun into foreign propaganda that we've taken as gospel all these years - yet the facts are there.

Unsurprisingly, it's been completely removed from YouTube. I had the foresight way back to download the movie and store it on a HD, however that HD may be in England (I'm not sure). If I get the chance, I'll reupload it to YouTube, otherwise you're on your own in hunting it down. Definitely recommended watching. I had no idea Mao's thugs had Deng Xiaoping's son thrown out of a high rise window, leaving him wheelchair bound for life, before seeing this documentary.

Very disappointed you and Minty didn't understand my earlier posts at all.

"People vs. the government via guns" is dangerous and unproductive foolishness, like Jon Ingram states. We've had plenty of successful political movements by mostly peaceful means, including the early 20th century socialists and the civil rights movement.

Peaceful revolution would naturally be the preferred method. I don't want to see people dying in the streets for the sake of being liberated from corrupt governing powers.

I think the argument is more that, in developed nations with complex systems and incredibly effective news related propaganda machines, it's even more difficult perhaps than in undeveloped nations where it's less easy to dissipate the crowds using subversive television and bullshit narratives that belittle the leaders of movements like Occupy as pests.

It will come to the point where the realisation that building banners and using loudspeakers simply has no effect. The Establishment won't move because moving means giving away some of their pennies or reducing some of the power of the corporate interests who own them - something they're simply not allowed to do.

Real liberty won't return through the current electoral process. There won't be a 'fair deal' for the common man until the system is torn up and revised from scratch with a new line of thinking that serves the people and disregards the pull of corporate entities. In some ways it would have to be a part destruction of the capitalist system as we know it, since corporations will flee to other countries not willing to tax them properly or audit their behaviours.

I don't have the answers of how to implement these changes, I only know that since the financial crisis the poor have become even poorer, many utterly destitute, while the responsible rich continue to get richer. Something is rotten in the heart of this world, and I don't think it can continue much longer.

[BryanM]

It will come to the point where the realisation that building banners and using loudspeakers simply has no effect. The Establishment won't move because moving means giving away some of their pennies or reducing some of the power of the corporate interests who own them - something they're simply not allowed to do.

Real liberty won't return through the current electoral process. There won't be a 'fair deal' for the common man until the system is torn up and revised from scratch with a new line of thinking that serves the people and disregards the pull of corporate entities. In some ways it would have to be a part destruction of the capitalist system as we know it, since corporations will flee to other countries not willing to tax them properly or audit their behaviours.

Yes, it is indeed true our current system is designed around millionaires begging billionaires and their friends for handouts. Hence why lawyers are overrepresented by several orders of magnitude - who knows more millionaires than lawyers?

If we want to remove bribery from the system with publicly financed elections, we could just vote for the people who vote for it, ne? Absolutely insane to 80's relics like us, but eventually it might become actually viable with the demographic shift.

[MintyTheCat]

@ Minty: Stop trying to put words in my mouth. There are plenty of sane and responsible gun owners. I don't believe that German law emphasizes guilt by association or trying people for the crimes of others. If somebody is able to demonstrate a variety of things - need, suitability, the right mindset, and compliance with good practices - the only argument left against letting them have a weapon would be denying that their personal rights are overrided by some other consideration, which I don't see being reasonable. You might as well argue that we ought to take people's fists away due to the "pressing public need" to maintain peace in all cases. We can't give absolute guarantees of safety, so instead public policy has to make a good compromise between the competing interests.

But it is very clear to many of us that people who are not sane own and use guns. We do not need to consider the law here, Ed. We only need to consider the outcome of the gun policies. I have no need to put words in your mouth. Sadly, the results speak for themselves, Ed.

When all is said and done, Ed, a gun is a device used to take the life of another or injured them. Any way you wish to or choose to wrap it up it still boils down to this fact. Why would a sane person need a gun? Why would a sane person feel the need to injure and kill others "just in case".

A person's fists or other parts of the body is not something that gives the ability to inure and take another's life as a gun, Ed. If this were the case and guns and fists were the same thing we could quite easily imagine a world whereby guns would not be required as we had fists.

I think you are foolish to even suggest this, Ed.

I think you want guns and you think you cannot live without them. This tells me more about your condition.

Wrap it up any way you like, with your legal rights and constitutional bullshit, but, well, a gun is a gun: a tool used to injure and kill - nothing more. it isn't a fist that is a hand that can be used for all manner of things, it is not a pen that can be used for all manner of things - it is a GUN and it has a SINGLE purpose: it is used to KILL and INJURE, Ed. Any way you like it that's what it does.

[MintyTheCat]

@Minty
Tiananmen Square as an incident was mostly foreign propaganda.

Would you say that those who created the propaganda drove those government issued chinese Army tanks through those protests too?

I think not, that was an order give at the top and I do recall that the guy who gave the order was said to regretted the decision to use force. I would have to look up references to give names - I am crap with names.

[Skykid]

@Minty
Tiananmen Square as an incident was mostly foreign propaganda.

Would you say that those who created the propaganda drove those government issued chinese Army tanks through those protests too?

I think not, that was an order give at the top and I do recall that the guy who gave the order was said to regretted the decision to use force. I would have to look up references to give names - I am crap with names.

That was Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China's economic growth. And yes, he held off giving the order to authorise military force because he absolutely didn't want to do so, but was under pressure from party members to clear the protest while foreign powers were enroute the country.

People did die, clashes occurred. What you think you know is not what happened however, don't allow yourself to follow the same propaganda line that makes Americans think Reagan was a good president and Kissinger was some kind of hero (rather than an authoriser of genocide in foreign countries).

Nothing is black and white, it didn't happen the way you think it did, and from those FBI recordings, it was sadly far less dramatic.

[MintyTheCat]

In a way I can see that less and less big decisions will be handled but the proverbial "group of old men" at some stage down the line.

Often companies use a kind of expert-system to help in making decisions. It is not too far a jump to suggest that artificial-intelligence will play a larger role in making decisions. When considering methods used to make decisions the main emphasis is on removing ones own ego and this I have seen from the I-Ching upwards to more applied AI techniques.

If you read some of Iain Bank's SciFi novels you will see that they essentially cut out much in the way of human, single generation thinking:

http://www.iain-banks.net/

I suppose, with our way of being it is all geared to getting what we can out of a pittance of years. Average age is around 70-80 where I live so one has to ask what type of decisions people would make if they were to live multiples of the current age range and if you take that idea to its extreme you would end up with 'individuals' that make decisions for unimaginable amounts of time into the future.
We are geared at this time in our development to just think for today and perhaps a little about tomorrow but nothing more.

So given the directives that were placed into the "right to bear arms" it was back what 500 years ago? If you look at the major religions their books were written when times were very different when people survived in deserts and it was socially less complex - the "eye for an eye" notion 'worked' back then as their were fewer consequences and their repercussions were less complex.

It reminds me, and I laugh at this, but it reminds me of the guy who writes the bit of temporary code as a five minute wonder job and then it becomes the standard. the guy wasn't really thinking much about what he was doing; he just needed a solution for that time but we all end up living with the 'legacy' of the situation

There are some visionaries that have had the foresight to see well beyond their own years but they are the exception.

But imagine what it would be like to consult with an entity that has the experience of 200, 500 or even tens of thousands of years of experience and wisdom. The best we can do at present is to consult books and other accounts of what has gone before us but it would be interesting to see how differently decisions would be made.

Capitalism is actually not very old at all and most certainly not a system that could be replaced. All systems eventually are replaced as something more fitting appears over time.

Capitalism is a synthetic in that energy created is occluded. Most systems and transactions that we are involved with at present yield a level of efficiency less than a 100% as output. There are some systems that give us more as output than what we put in as input but largely we waste something along the way. There's a scale used to determine a civilsation's level of development:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

When energy becomes 'free' and we have in place systems that give us more than we could need and what's more we do not feel compelled to want more than we need then capitalism would look like a childish joke of a system for historians to laugh about.

To my mind this notion of needing to be armed and such is really a battle over resources: over property which most conflicts in our past were about until we had some more over ideology and more recently over economics. As such, if we truly live in a post-scarcity age you could question why anyone would argue over territory.

By that stage I would say that we'd have lost nearly all the major religions of today, gotten rid of capitalism, had universal welfare beyond any imaginable dreams and it may well be that people augment their basic abilities with extra systems. There is a reason why financial brokers retire in their mid thirties - the number of decisions required to compete becomes too much and eventually people would break down. However, it may be that individuals and groups involved in situations that require lots of decision making will augment their natural abilities with additional 'hardware' - I say hardware as it would most likely not be hardware as we would think of it today - perhaps 'bio-ware' would be closer - who knows.

[Skykid]

Capitalism is actually not very old at all and most certainly not a system that could be replaced.

I think replacing it is a veritable impossibility and not particularly practical, but augmenting it, certainly. Essentially you need to undo the damage of corporate intervention in government by destroying and punishing corruption, taxing the right people proportionately to their wealth, creating audits that lead to actual enforcement and moderating activities of wealthy institutions. Basically re-introducing all the laws and measures that were created 70 years ago to ensure people were protected, salaries were proportionate to inflation, and everyone had a right to a liveable wage - or simply reinstating the monitoring structures that have been slowly eroded and obfuscated by decades worth of global conspiratorial corruption.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Real liberty won't return through the current electoral process. There won't be a 'fair deal' for the common man until the system is torn up and revised from scratch with a new line of thinking that serves the people and disregards the pull of corporate entities.

What's 'real liberty'? When did it exist and how is it supposed to return? Can you, for a moment, move away from this abstract, idealistic standpoint and explain in plain, concrete terms what this society of real liberty is going to look like economically and politically.

I think replacing it is a veritable impossibility and not particularly practical, but augmenting it, certainly.

Well, I have no doubt that for you, a member of the non-producing classes whose laid-back, carefree lifestyle is allowed by the hard labor of others, replacing capitalism is not only an impractical but also undesirable proposition, but there would be a lot more honesty and dignity in it if you didn't try to justify your personal preference for capitalism and material interest in its perpetuation by the supposed impossibility of its replacement.

Capitalism is actually not very old at all and most certainly not a system that could be replaced. All systems eventually are replaced as something more fitting appears over time.

Capitalism is a synthetic in that energy created is occluded. Most systems and transactions that we are involved with at present yield a level of efficiency less than a 100% as output. There are some systems that give us more as output than what we put in as input but largely we waste something along the way. There's a scale used to determine a civilsation's level of development:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

When energy becomes 'free' and we have in place systems that give us more than we could need and what's more we do not feel compelled to want more than we need then capitalism would look like a childish joke of a system for historians to laugh about.

No offense Minty, but this is quite possibly one of the most insane things I've ever read. It certainly takes a a very special state of mind and a lot of imagination to take an astrophysical scale, a hypothesis, intended for the measurement of the development level of extraterrestrial civilizations and use it on the socioeconomic formations that we have on Earth, particularly Capitalism, whose rise and inevitable fall has little to do with the occlusion of created energy.

Kardashev's scale is science fiction material and that's where I learned of it from for the first time - Soviet science fiction literature. In one short story, whose name I can't recover from my memory, a fleet of scout spaceships from Earth venturing to explore the distant corners of the universe was outfitted with a special gizmo which would analyze alien life forms based on a multitude of factors, among which was the consumption of energy on Kardashev's scale.

[Skykid]

What's 'real liberty'? When did it exist and how is it supposed to return?

That's real liberty in direct contrast to the current 'liberty' we're all supposed to be enjoying in our all-singing, all-dancing democratic free countries.

Of course I can entertain your semantic grinding if you like, but I agree with you that absolute liberty (whatever that is - perhaps absolute freedom) will never exist and never has.

Well, I have no doubt that for you, a member of the non-producing classes whose laid-back, carefree lifestyle is allowed by the hard labor of others, replacing capitalism is not only an impractical but also undesirable proposition

What are you talking about, I'm self employed and have no staff.

My lifestyle is carefree and laid-back though, I'll give you that. Took a lot of hard work and a massive relocation to get here though.

but there would be a lot more honesty and dignity in it if you didn't try to justify your personal preference for capitalism and material interest in its perpetuation by the supposed impossibility of its replacement.

Why do I get the feeling you've jumped in on this from completely the wrong direction. If you, anyone, a group, a governmental body, can indeed come up with a viable alternative to capitalism I'm more than happy to stand behind it. Ultimately I'm only interested in seeing the current, deeply corrupt systems that leave my friends and family in relative poverty with almost no options or prospects for social mobility (which is by and large a myth).

I have deja vu already because we've done this all before; it's very likely we're on the same side of the fence with this.

[Jonathan Ingram]

That's real liberty in direct contrast to the current 'liberty' we're all supposed to be enjoying in our all-singing, all-dancing democratic free countries.

Liberty from what and for what? Are you being vague on purpose? The liberty to profiteer at the expense of others is a liberty, too - one that millions will fight tooth and nail to defend.

What are you talking about, I'm self employed and have no staff.

Way to miss the point. I'm self-employed, too. I don't do much of anything, have an obscene amount of free-time on my hands, have like 20 hobbies, and still make more money in a week than the unfortunate Vietnamese and Kyrgyz women slaving away for 12-14 hours a day at the sewing sweatshop a few miles from my place do in a month or more. Do I exploit them directly? - No, I don't. Is my relatively privileged position in the division of labor made possible by their exploitation? - It most definitely is.

If you, anyone, a group, a governmental body, can indeed come up with a viable alternative to capitalism I'm more than happy to stand behind it.

The only viable alternative to capitalism is and has always been socialism, not as an embodiment of an abstract principle or idea, but as a consequence of capitalism's development and a practical solution to the contradictions created by it, a socioeconomic model which organizes production, distribution and consumption of social product on the basis of conscious planning and direct resource allocation in contrast to free market's supply/demand balance.

Sure, you could claim that it's impossible and will not work or even embrace the neoliberal narrative of capitalism as "the end of history", but that would be tantamount to saying that we have failed as a species.

I have deja vu already because we've done this all before; it's very likely we're on the same side of the fence with this.

On the contrary, I think our positions are quite different. You're arguing for brokering some sort of deal with a thin layer of private individuals. I'm arguing for their complete removal from the picture by any means necessary, abolition of private property relations in economy and a reorganization of society on socialist principles.

[Skykid]

That's real liberty in direct contrast to the current 'liberty' we're all supposed to be enjoying in our all-singing, all-dancing democratic free countries.

Liberty from what and for what? Are you being vague on purpose?

Yes - It wasn't meant to be wording for you to spend several posts picking apart - although I don't see why the now once-already-made clarification you just quoted above isn't enough to illustrate its usage?

Way to miss the point. I'm self-employed, too. I don't do much of anything, have an obscene amount of free-time on my hands, have like 20 hobbies, and still make more money in a week than the unfortunate Vietnamese and Kyrgyz women slaving away for 12-14 hours a day at the sewing sweatshop a few miles from my place do in a month or more. Do I exploit them directly? - No, I don't. Is my relatively privileged position in the division of labor made possible by their exploitation? - It most definitely is.

So your point is that someone who makes a living using the capitalist model therefore has no right to challenge the perversions that have befallen it? Well ok. I don't agree, but that's that I suppose.

The only viable alternative to capitalism is and has always been socialism, not as an embodiment of an abstract principle or idea, but as a consequence of capitalism's development and a practical solution to the contradictions created by it, a socioeconomic model which organizes production, distribution and consumption of social product on the basis of conscious planning and direct resource allocation in contrast to free market's supply/demand balance.

Sure, you could claim that it's impossible and will not work or even embrace the neoliberal narrative of capitalism as "the end of history", but that would be tantamount to saying that we have failed as a species.

I understand this, but you're assuming a sort of absolute alternative: socialism being the only other current viable contender. But I like to believe some kind of hybrid can exist where virtues of capitalism and socialist ideals can share the same bed. Perhaps that's more ideological thinking than practical, but at this stage I'd rather see the disassembly of corrupting powers in big business as a start, since they're the ones who foster and encourage slavery. Capitalism has always required a hierarchy of exploitation in some form in that some have to have less, but there are examples of it actually working to ensure people lived well even on the lower rungs. 1950s America was a good example of capitalism at least being practiced more fairly, if obviously not flawless (what is?)

On the contrary, I think our positions are quite different. You're arguing for brokering some sort of deal with a thin layer of private individuals. I'm arguing for their complete removal from the picture by any means necessary, abolition of private property relations in economy and a reorganization of society on socialist principles.

Basically you're a hardline socialist. I don't disagree with the principles of socialism at all, in-fact they're often the only ones that make sense on paper. But at this point I'm not thinking as far ahead as a complete change - some justice being done and moves to alleviate growing poverty would be a good start.

[BryanM]

Like Socialist Alaska? They have an oil dividend program that grants its citizens about $1k a year. Dat creepy idea that resources belong to people collectively, instead of the first guy who owns guys with shovels and guns that secures it for himself.

As always, technology and people who grow up in the reality that technology created are the mechanisms for political change. At times I wonder if we'd be much further ahead if we had finished out the development of Thorium reactors.

Buuuuut that would have entailed rendering hundreds of $billions of owned assets worthless, kill tens of thousands of jobs, and make some very rich people very sad. So good thing we didn't do that, eh?

[Skykid]

Like Socialist Alaska? They have an oil dividend program that grants its citizens about $1k a year. Dat creepy idea that resources belong to people collectively, instead of the first guy who owns guys with shovels and guns that secures it for himself

That's a wonderful example, yes, and one I admit to being unaware of. Also co-operative businesses and industries that recognise its employees as having part ownership of the company, and that socialist phenomenon of national healthcare: the right to not dying and being granted medical assistance as a response to the taxes you pay.

The fact that Cameron wants to privatise the UK's NHS makes the discussion of socialist ideas within a capitalist playground all the more crucial.

[Satan]

Common sense socialism would only exist with a government which serves its people and not a small elite, which in this day and age sounds so fucking utopian, and that is utterly ridiculous. I could be wrong, but I think the only reason why Britain had a socialised healthcare system, welfare and pensions, nationalised rail and mail and power and telecoms industries is because this is what the elites in this country thought it would have taken for us to go work in their factories, but they found that when they got rid of one; we still showed up for work, so we continued in spite of the same amount of tax being deducted from our wages. This is all very simplistic of course, I'm incredibly high - it's my birthday.

[Jonathan Ingram]

So your point is that someone who makes a living using the capitalist model therefore has no right to challenge the perversions that have befallen it? Well ok. I don't agree, but that's that I suppose.

Right. That is the point. Quite a twist on your part.

Perhaps that's more ideological thinking than practical, but at this stage I'd rather see the disassembly of corrupting powers in big business as a start, since they're the ones who foster and encourage slavery

The exploitation of one by another is at the core of capitalism. It's not perpetrated by some bad, corrupted people ruining good ideas. Business understands progress in terms of expansion and profitability. That's all there ever was to it.

Capitalism has always required a hierarchy of exploitation in some form in that some have to have less, but there are examples of it actually working to ensure people lived well even on the lower rungs. 1950s America was a good example of capitalism at least being practiced more fairly, if obviously not flawless (what is?)

The welfare state of the 50s and 60s in the US and Western Europe(part of it, anyway, because Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece sure as hell don't qualify) was an outgrowth of capitalism's rapid expansion into new territories where it found new sources of cheap labor and raw materials - a condition that you can't replicate for our world is not a rubber one and you can't stretch it till it pops a new continent or two - clean, shiny and ready for exploitation. Resetting our civilization with nuclear weapons might work, though.

Basically you're a hardline socialist. I don't disagree with the principles of socialism at all, in-fact they're often the only ones that make sense on paper.

I think you have it all wrong. It's not me being hardline, but rather the pretend-left slush of Syriza, Podemos, Die Linke and other "socialist" parties not being socialist at all and having nothing to do with the historical goals of socialism. I'd be hardline if I favored physical extermination of the bourgeoisie on principle regardless of their willingness to cooperate, which I don't.

That's a wonderful example, yes, and one I admit to being unaware of. Also co-operative businesses and industries that recognise its employees as having part ownership of the company, and that socialist phenomenon of national healthcare: the right to not dying and being granted medical assistance as a response to the taxes you pay.

That example has nothing to do with socialism and neither are co-operative businesses or National Healthcare System. Referring to privately owned co-ops which interact with each other on the basis of money-commodity relations as socialist is simply even more slander towards socialism.

[Ed Oscuro]

Are any of us producers under a Marxist interpretation? College professors getting a pass when soft journalists don't is actually pretty arbitrary, even if that was a long-time-coming cheap shot

re: the Kardashev scale, the problem with an abstraction like this is that there are impediments to growth far before we get to energy use. Politics, emotions, technological bottlenecks - all these and more are good examples of where we can't expect to simply ramp up development forever. And in that case, I don't understand the statement that human development processes are "mostly" less than 100% efficient. If you're saying that we have the ability to multiply resource coverage, that's one thing; implying that we have any processes which are 100% energy efficient is another, and is wrong.

@ Minty: I have just skimmed your post and I have seen this kind of tired baiting before.

My entire point is that some political regimes assume that societal concerns override individual ones in this case (which seems out of step with penal laws that are quite lax).
In the US, firearms ownership advocates take as granted that individual rights are important enough to not be hastily overthrown. Many are pretty fundamentalist about this notion.
Neither fully and completely covers the human condition.

I'm personally somewhere in the middle here. I certainly don't take a fundamentalist view of individual rights; I don't think it is completely ridiculous to argue that we should completely ban activities based on an argument about the probability of safety from it. But neither do I think that complete bans have (or are likely to have) very good success in the US, and I also don't think they are necessary.

As for your insinuations about my mental state, fuck off.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Are any of us producers under a Marxist interpretation?

I think the distinction will be between what can be regarded as production under capitalism and how the definition is going to change with a transition to socialism. In capitalism, any act of creating a good or a service and trading it for exchange value is an act of production and considering capitalism's tendency towards commodification of everything in existence, just about anyone can be considered a producer - be it a girl providing her appearance for a magazine cover or some hipster writing an article for an internet publication. Whether this "production" is socially necessary and plays the same role in the upkeep of the economy as the production of material goods and socially vital services is another matter entirely.

[Skykid]

So your point is that someone who makes a living using the capitalist model therefore has no right to challenge the perversions that have befallen it? Well ok. I don't agree, but that's that I suppose.

Right. That is the point. Quite a twist on your part.

Not at all. There's wanting meaningful change and being realistic about your place within that change. If you're not a hardline socialist then a hardline Marxist? Either way from the description of your personal income it also sounds as though your survival habits are contradictory to your ideologies.

Taking from the massively rich via proper taxation, moderation and de-weeding them from government should not adversely affect the way you make money. It's about redistribution of disproportionate wealth in a pragmatic manner to ensure people with less have higher living standards.

The exploitation of one by another is at the core of capitalism. It's not perpetrated by some bad, corrupted people ruining good ideas. Business understands progress in terms of expansion and profitability. That's all there ever was to it.

Not exactly. That's all there ever was to it on paper, and if you look at it with your head at an angle you can also say that the pursuit of profit has lead profiteers to infiltrate and corrupt governments and rewrite laws to suit their own agendas. Perhaps it's a consequence of capitalism that we've reached this point, but politics and corporate power should never have been allowed to become so intertwined. I personally believe there's a way to undo it without destroying it, but I can't see a way of getting there now without radical action (an overthrow that probably involves people dying).

Resetting our civilization with nuclear weapons might work, though.

Essentially you're on the same lines as what I just said regarding radical action, but a reset via nuclear weapons is a little extreme. Topple one western government by intervention of its people and others can follow. Enough and it may be possible to cripple big business enough to get them to sit up and play ball rather than watch their dominion crumble.

I think you have it all wrong. It's not me being hardline, but rather the pretend-left slush of Syriza, Podemos, Die Linke and other "socialist" parties not being socialist at all and having nothing to do with the historical goals of socialism. I'd be hardline if I favored physical extermination of the bourgeoisie on principle regardless of their willingness to cooperate, which I don't.

A hardline Marxist then.

That example has nothing to do with socialism and neither are co-operative businesses or National Healthcare System. Referring to privately owned co-ops which interact with each other on the basis of money-commodity relations as socialist is simply even more slander towards socialism.

That's quite true. National Healthcare is only considered socialist or communist by Americans who fear it as such. But perhaps we can consider these to be more moral structures within capitalism, systems that serve people for their contributions. I'd like to see a lot more of this.

[MintyTheCat]

Real liberty won't return through the current electoral process. There won't be a 'fair deal' for the common man until the system is torn up and revised from scratch with a new line of thinking that serves the people and disregards the pull of corporate entities.

What's 'real liberty'? When did it exist and how is it supposed to return? Can you, for a moment, move away from this abstract, idealistic standpoint and explain in plain, concrete terms what this society of real liberty is going to look like economically and politically.

Liberty is an abstract true, but it can also be attained and it is hoped that it will eventually be attained.
You may find that higher concepts can often be abstract and in a way they raise and set the standard.
Economically it can only be attained when we are as a race post-scarcity.
The ultimate expression of political freedom would be a type of anarchy I dare say in that each individual makes their own path and decisions. We are a long way from that though but everything is factored according to our present state in light of our social and economic system, etc in place.

Capitalism is actually not very old at all and most certainly not a system that could be replaced. All systems eventually are replaced as something more fitting appears over time.

Capitalism is a synthetic in that energy created is occluded. Most systems and transactions that we are involved with at present yield a level of efficiency less than a 100% as output. There are some systems that give us more as output than what we put in as input but largely we waste something along the way. There's a scale used to determine a civilsation's level of development:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

When energy becomes 'free' and we have in place systems that give us more than we could need and what's more we do not feel compelled to want more than we need then capitalism would look like a childish joke of a system for historians to laugh about.

No offense Minty, but this is quite possibly one of the most insane things I've ever read. It certainly takes a a very special state of mind and a lot of imagination to take an astrophysical scale, a hypothesis, intended for the measurement of the development level of extraterrestrial civilizations and use it on the socioeconomic formations that we have on Earth, particularly Capitalism, whose rise and inevitable fall has little to do with the occlusion of created energy.

Kardashev's scale is science fiction material and that's where I learned of it from for the first time - Soviet science fiction literature. In one short story, whose name I can't recover from my memory, a fleet of scout spaceships from Earth venturing to explore the distant corners of the universe was outfitted with a special gizmo which would analyze alien life forms based on a multitude of factors, among which was the consumption of energy on Kardashev's scale.

I take no offense at all.

Ok, take the scale as being a measure of a civilisation's level of social and technical development and concentrate on the point up to 1.0 and just beyond it for now. That would not be 'cosmic' for anything before 1.0.

Energy, and indeed units of energy are represented in our current system amongst other means as "money" as cash. Look on the back of a GBP 20 note and it will say "I promise to pay the bearer the sum of...." - it is an icon that represents a part of the energy in that system. Money is a concept devised to 'store' energy and to permit transfer.

You may find that many ideas are "science-fiction material" and it really says more about your background than it does mine. Most mathematics is SciFi but guess what, it works.
I do indeed possess a strong imagination but it kind of goes with the territory or is it the other way around?

There's a list of all the problems that would need to be solved before mankind can a true space faring race and it was written nearly 200 years ago. That would have been seen as SciFi back then too. Radio waves: pure 'SciFi' once again - in fact, it is positively Occult, Jonathan
A lot of the science over the last 200 years would be seen as SciFi even today.

I am unsure as to why you seem to reject the idea of analysing a group's level of technological and social development when this is EXACTLY what countries and organisations do often