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On December 29 2018 06:28 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 06:16 ChristianS wrote:On December 29 2018 06:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 06:00 ChristianS wrote:
I mean, okay. I made an earnest effort to understand your beliefs, why you believe them, and why I don't share them. Mealy-mouthed is often how that's gonna come out. If you'd rather I keep it to myself next time I can do that.
Examples of what? Are you talking about p6, Wulfey, etc. saying things like "lol, turns out Berniebros were just Russian pawns" and the like? I thought they were wrong, and more generally that it's obnoxious to dismiss opponents without engaging with their argument like that. Same for the general trend of liberals dismissing opposing voices on the internet as Russian trolls (LegalLord used to get this a lot, for example). I don't mean to be disrespectful, just frank. Yes those, but more specifically spreading either negligently bad or intentionally deceitful reporting/commentary from which they were drawing/supporting their assertions on the significance or validity of those types of claims. Oh, was this the story about a rally organized by Russian operatives or whatever that you kept badgering P6 about? I never researched it independently, but I'll take your word for it that it was bullshit. If that's all you're writing off as propaganda, fair enough. I was under the impression you were complaining about the entire "Russian influence campaign swung the election" narrative and calling all of it a disingenuous propaganda campaign by the corporate media, which is where I have trouble following you. Well it's an example. It happens to be a stark one that can't really be mealy mouthed around. Of course that's not it. Just a lot of the other stuff is more subtle, less widely spread, was edited/taken down, etc... The facebook rally organized by Russians (it wasn't) stands as an example of several of the aspects I'm referencing. It's so pervasive and misleading that yes the entire "Russia influence campaign swung the election" narrative is trash designed to distract and displace. The story and it's terrible headline is still up. It's so pervasive that it's still being cited as an example of Russian manipulation, but get this, by the right saying the left was manipulated by Russians. That's how out of hand it's gotten.
See, when you sweep the entire news industry into the generalization it's hard to follow you based on one example. I mean, when Jeff Gerstmann got fired it was pretty clear Gamespot had a problem separating its advertising business from its journalism, but that wasn't really sufficient evidence to condemn the entire industry as lying whores.
Like, Radiolab did an episode on Russian election interference. Am I to believe that Radiolab staff are all corporate shills reading a script handed to them by Warren Buffett? Or are they useful idiots for the corporate cause? Or does Buffett have some kind of kompromat on Jad Abumrad?
A lot of people thought the Russian influence campaign was a big story, in part because its efficacy was unclear (especially in such a close election). Looking back, I'd guess at this point it didn't have much impact, but it doesn't seem very likely to me that everybody writing articles about it from 2016 until now knew it didn't have much impact and just wrote about it to further their corporate overlords' interests. I don't know if that's what you're claiming, but if it is I'd certainly be interested to see more evidence.
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On December 29 2018 08:02 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 06:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 06:16 ChristianS wrote:On December 29 2018 06:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 06:00 ChristianS wrote:
I mean, okay. I made an earnest effort to understand your beliefs, why you believe them, and why I don't share them. Mealy-mouthed is often how that's gonna come out. If you'd rather I keep it to myself next time I can do that.
Examples of what? Are you talking about p6, Wulfey, etc. saying things like "lol, turns out Berniebros were just Russian pawns" and the like? I thought they were wrong, and more generally that it's obnoxious to dismiss opponents without engaging with their argument like that. Same for the general trend of liberals dismissing opposing voices on the internet as Russian trolls (LegalLord used to get this a lot, for example). I don't mean to be disrespectful, just frank. Yes those, but more specifically spreading either negligently bad or intentionally deceitful reporting/commentary from which they were drawing/supporting their assertions on the significance or validity of those types of claims. Oh, was this the story about a rally organized by Russian operatives or whatever that you kept badgering P6 about? I never researched it independently, but I'll take your word for it that it was bullshit. If that's all you're writing off as propaganda, fair enough. I was under the impression you were complaining about the entire "Russian influence campaign swung the election" narrative and calling all of it a disingenuous propaganda campaign by the corporate media, which is where I have trouble following you. Well it's an example. It happens to be a stark one that can't really be mealy mouthed around. Of course that's not it. Just a lot of the other stuff is more subtle, less widely spread, was edited/taken down, etc... The facebook rally organized by Russians (it wasn't) stands as an example of several of the aspects I'm referencing. It's so pervasive and misleading that yes the entire "Russia influence campaign swung the election" narrative is trash designed to distract and displace. The story and it's terrible headline is still up. It's so pervasive that it's still being cited as an example of Russian manipulation, but get this, by the right saying the left was manipulated by Russians. That's how out of hand it's gotten. https://twitter.com/RedRumRaider/status/1078444897894612992 See, when you sweep the entire news industry into the generalization it's hard to follow you based on one example. I mean, when Jeff Gerstmann got fired it was pretty clear Gamespot had a problem separating its advertising business from its journalism, but that wasn't really sufficient evidence to condemn the entire industry as lying whores. Like, Radiolab did an episode on Russian election interference. Am I to believe that Radiolab staff are all corporate shills reading a script handed to them by Warren Buffett? Or are they useful idiots for the corporate cause? Or does Buffett have some kind of kompromat on Jad Abumrad? A lot of people thought the Russian influence campaign was a big story, in part because its efficacy was unclear (especially in such a close election). Looking back, I'd guess at this point it didn't have much impact, but it doesn't seem very likely to me that everybody writing articles about it from 2016 until now knew it didn't have much impact and just wrote about it to further their corporate overlords' interests. I don't know if that's what you're claiming, but if it is I'd certainly be interested to see more evidence.
I've learned to attribute most of it to incompetence. That's why I said "negligently bad", for myself personally they've burned through that benefit of the doubt in many cases, but I'm frequently reminded of how oblivious they can be.
No idea what radiolab said (never listened) but it's probably fair to say they were absentmindedly repeating the same stuff most reporters/commentators were. Not corporate shills being handed a script or other elaborate conspiracy.
The same goes for a lot of people from posters, to pundits, to politicians.
Perhaps if you stop imagining elaborate conspiracies and instead think more like "black overseer on a plantation" (wish I had a something different to use there off the top of my head) it'll be easier for you to understand what I'm claiming.
Edit:I suppose "unwitting dupes" is the topical nomenclature.
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On December 28 2018 22:27 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2018 18:20 iamthedave wrote:
I'm not sure there's any political system that can properly address climate change save the New World Order; it requires everyone to pull in the same direction and make certain sacrifices. Massive migrations would likewise put a strain on any society unless it was people from the exact same philosophical and political system into the same environment (which doesn't exist).
In fact I don't think there's any system BUT the New World Order that could possibly address those problems adequately. They're all an outgrowth of basic human tribalism because at heart we're tribal animals who got uppity about our place in the world. Are you suggesting our fate is unavoidable so we might as well just ride the capitalism wave until it crashes?
More that so far Capitalism is the best idea anyone has had.
That doesn't mean it can't be improved and doesn't mean the search for a better system should stop, but the things you want answers to can't be solved by a snap of the fingers. There's no system known to mankind that is equipped to properly handle the issues you mentioned there.
That doesn't mean that Capitalism is immune to criticism by any means, but it does protect it from these specific criticisms, because there are no alternatives to it that can face those challenges any better than Capitalism can. What you can say in Capitalism's favour is that it creates an at least moderately robust, stable system that theoretically allows a nation enough mineral wealth to respond to these threats.
How you expand those benefits to the entire world, though, I do not know.
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On December 29 2018 09:03 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2018 22:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 18:20 iamthedave wrote:
I'm not sure there's any political system that can properly address climate change save the New World Order; it requires everyone to pull in the same direction and make certain sacrifices. Massive migrations would likewise put a strain on any society unless it was people from the exact same philosophical and political system into the same environment (which doesn't exist).
In fact I don't think there's any system BUT the New World Order that could possibly address those problems adequately. They're all an outgrowth of basic human tribalism because at heart we're tribal animals who got uppity about our place in the world. Are you suggesting our fate is unavoidable so we might as well just ride the capitalism wave until it crashes? More that so far Capitalism is the best idea anyone has had. That doesn't mean it can't be improved and doesn't mean the search for a better system should stop, but the things you want answers to can't be solved by a snap of the fingers. There's no system known to mankind that is equipped to properly handle the issues you mentioned there. That doesn't mean that Capitalism is immune to criticism by any means, but it does protect it from these specific criticisms, because there are no alternatives to it that can face those challenges any better than Capitalism can. What you can say in Capitalism's favour is that it creates an at least moderately robust, stable system that theoretically allows a nation enough mineral wealth to respond to these threats. How you expand those benefits to the entire world, though, I do not know.
I don't have the time at the moment to explain why I think pretty much everything you said was wrong but I'll preface a more in depth answer with capitalism isn't the best at any of those things.
EDIT: I'm actually just going to say that socialism is a better idea than capitalism hands down.
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On December 29 2018 05:15 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 05:03 IgnE wrote:On December 28 2018 14:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 07:50 Nouar wrote:On December 28 2018 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 02:35 Nouar wrote:On December 27 2018 13:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
After the first two years of Trump's presidency I feel reasonably confident neither major party can possibly address the problems we're facing now and in within our lifetimes.
If someone disagrees I'd love to hear how they think they could, I'll even grant 100% party control of every branch including the judiciary (once one has tried and failed in a more realistic political climate).
As long as humans are in charge, and the world made up of separate countries, with the most common form of government being democracy, running capitalism and trying to earn money individually instead of working towards the greater good and the planet ? I agree. Some countries made it work somewhat, with the population being overall really happy (northern Europe mainly), but it's going downhill due to other parts of the world. Do note that I do not know of a better solution that would not be a utopia, bound to fail after a few years due to human greed. (Any such solution would require to control a steady level of population, and we now enter the realm of unacceptable ethics...) On another note, your dear president : “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?” His tweet comes after on Christmas Day he said that federal workers back what he is doing, and have urged him to ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall.’
"These federal workers want the wall,” he said. “The only one that doesn't want the wall are the Democrats.” There's... a slight issue in these two statements :-D Socialism isn't utopia it's just a scientific approach to addressing the problems we face as opposed to the commercial approach capitalism takes. Surely eliminating bad social tendencies reinforced by capitalism (like greed) will take time and are unlikely to be completely eradicated by socialism, but the idea that greed is so overpowering that any system built on mutual respect and dignity will fail is something capitalists tell people to keep them trapped. The US stands in a unique position in that we are actively (and have been since it's origin) suppressing socialism/communism and simply not incessantly trying to destroy socialists would shift the whole globe away from capitalism (though not completely). As long as you have humans in charge, any system will gradually get corrupted by the individuals. And even if you manage to get perfect equality and no greed, then it becomes hard to see the result of hard work, since it leads to no improvements. People will then get lazy, and everything will start going down the drain. (I'll take a non-perfect exemple : the oil situation in Venezuela, where the state put unskilled workers in the oil company. Once a threshold was reached, things started to degenerate in the maintenance and operations of the oil industry, adding to the issues during the crisis.) I am too lazy to list all systems of government and all things that are bound to go wrong in each of them. I guess we have to find the less worse of the bunch, and try to find a balance to keep the planet alive ? Usually wars kept us humble and sort of served as a soft-reset. I don't know how it's going to work though, in a world where a full-scale war can mean the end of life on the planet. Obviously any effective system will have to adapt to changes in circumstances. My general point is that scientific socialism is a better system even if imperfect. On December 28 2018 09:04 IgnE wrote:
How about you draw up a list of the “problems we are facing” so we can see what you mean.
Climate change, water/energy shortages, and massive migrations away from uninhabitable land to try to put a bow on it. But you could sprinkle in white nationalism, economic collapse and international conflict on top of that if you want. What about campaign finance reform? Yeah, they can't do that either. The centrist base just accepts it as an unfortunate inevitability. It really is remarkable how nimble the center is at balancing their critique of the status quo with their complicity in it's perpetuation.
Nancy Pelosi has a wide-ranging campaign finance reform bill. The best since Newt's Republican revolution in the 90s. Have you seen it?
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On December 29 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 05:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 05:03 IgnE wrote:On December 28 2018 14:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 07:50 Nouar wrote:On December 28 2018 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 02:35 Nouar wrote:On December 27 2018 13:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
After the first two years of Trump's presidency I feel reasonably confident neither major party can possibly address the problems we're facing now and in within our lifetimes.
If someone disagrees I'd love to hear how they think they could, I'll even grant 100% party control of every branch including the judiciary (once one has tried and failed in a more realistic political climate).
As long as humans are in charge, and the world made up of separate countries, with the most common form of government being democracy, running capitalism and trying to earn money individually instead of working towards the greater good and the planet ? I agree. Some countries made it work somewhat, with the population being overall really happy (northern Europe mainly), but it's going downhill due to other parts of the world. Do note that I do not know of a better solution that would not be a utopia, bound to fail after a few years due to human greed. (Any such solution would require to control a steady level of population, and we now enter the realm of unacceptable ethics...) On another note, your dear president : “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?” His tweet comes after on Christmas Day he said that federal workers back what he is doing, and have urged him to ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall.’
"These federal workers want the wall,” he said. “The only one that doesn't want the wall are the Democrats.” There's... a slight issue in these two statements :-D Socialism isn't utopia it's just a scientific approach to addressing the problems we face as opposed to the commercial approach capitalism takes. Surely eliminating bad social tendencies reinforced by capitalism (like greed) will take time and are unlikely to be completely eradicated by socialism, but the idea that greed is so overpowering that any system built on mutual respect and dignity will fail is something capitalists tell people to keep them trapped. The US stands in a unique position in that we are actively (and have been since it's origin) suppressing socialism/communism and simply not incessantly trying to destroy socialists would shift the whole globe away from capitalism (though not completely). As long as you have humans in charge, any system will gradually get corrupted by the individuals. And even if you manage to get perfect equality and no greed, then it becomes hard to see the result of hard work, since it leads to no improvements. People will then get lazy, and everything will start going down the drain. (I'll take a non-perfect exemple : the oil situation in Venezuela, where the state put unskilled workers in the oil company. Once a threshold was reached, things started to degenerate in the maintenance and operations of the oil industry, adding to the issues during the crisis.) I am too lazy to list all systems of government and all things that are bound to go wrong in each of them. I guess we have to find the less worse of the bunch, and try to find a balance to keep the planet alive ? Usually wars kept us humble and sort of served as a soft-reset. I don't know how it's going to work though, in a world where a full-scale war can mean the end of life on the planet. Obviously any effective system will have to adapt to changes in circumstances. My general point is that scientific socialism is a better system even if imperfect. On December 28 2018 09:04 IgnE wrote:
How about you draw up a list of the “problems we are facing” so we can see what you mean.
Climate change, water/energy shortages, and massive migrations away from uninhabitable land to try to put a bow on it. But you could sprinkle in white nationalism, economic collapse and international conflict on top of that if you want. What about campaign finance reform? Yeah, they can't do that either. The centrist base just accepts it as an unfortunate inevitability. It really is remarkable how nimble the center is at balancing their critique of the status quo with their complicity in it's perpetuation. Nancy Pelosi has a wide-ranging campaign finance reform bill. The best since Newt's Republican revolution in the 90s. Have you seen it?
Not before you mentioned it. It's cute though I guess?
I guess the question is will Democrats carve away any real reform to get it passed Republicans in the senate and wipe their hands of the problem or just let it languish in the house and use it as their go to example of how they would totally fix campaign finance if only they didn't only try to make it happen when Republicans have the power to shut it down.
I assume you were just trying to give me an ally-oop but I'm tired so I dont have a windmill in me.
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On December 29 2018 09:41 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 09:03 iamthedave wrote:On December 28 2018 22:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 18:20 iamthedave wrote:
I'm not sure there's any political system that can properly address climate change save the New World Order; it requires everyone to pull in the same direction and make certain sacrifices. Massive migrations would likewise put a strain on any society unless it was people from the exact same philosophical and political system into the same environment (which doesn't exist).
In fact I don't think there's any system BUT the New World Order that could possibly address those problems adequately. They're all an outgrowth of basic human tribalism because at heart we're tribal animals who got uppity about our place in the world. Are you suggesting our fate is unavoidable so we might as well just ride the capitalism wave until it crashes? More that so far Capitalism is the best idea anyone has had. That doesn't mean it can't be improved and doesn't mean the search for a better system should stop, but the things you want answers to can't be solved by a snap of the fingers. There's no system known to mankind that is equipped to properly handle the issues you mentioned there. That doesn't mean that Capitalism is immune to criticism by any means, but it does protect it from these specific criticisms, because there are no alternatives to it that can face those challenges any better than Capitalism can. What you can say in Capitalism's favour is that it creates an at least moderately robust, stable system that theoretically allows a nation enough mineral wealth to respond to these threats. How you expand those benefits to the entire world, though, I do not know. I don't have the time at the moment to explain why I think pretty much everything you said was wrong but I'll preface a more in depth answer with capitalism isn't the best at any of those things. EDIT: I'm actually just going to say that socialism is a better idea than capitalism hands down.
You're going to have to go deep to explain how Socialism is better in reality to Capitalism, given that most socialist states have lasted at most a couple of generations or slid into tyranny like the USSR did.
I won't doubt that socialism is a better idea, that's why people still champion it. It's just that every time people have tried it save on a very small scale it's gone completely wrong. I think Venezuala's the best modern example of socialism given it worked for a time, but that ended in utter disaster, too.
When you go wall of text, don't just point out Capitalism's problems. I'm sure everyone here is already aware of most of them anyway. Make sure to point out which system you think can better answer the problems you highlighted, and why that system is better than Capitalism to do it. Just throwing tomatoes at Capitalism isn't much of fertile grounds for discussion because it's low hanging fruit and everyone here either agrees it sucks (I do agree Capitalism sucks) or thinks it's awesome..
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Any anticapitalist idea, including socialism, has to emerge from one of the top capitalist countries (pretty sure Marx said so himself). It's not really surprising that when alternatives to capitalism start in a country from the third world, with little power or influence on the global scale, they get pressured by the capitalist powers - who have interest in seeing it fail - and that pressure is obviously very likely to succeed.
Alternately, when the left wins an economic fight in the first world, we obtain rights and we no longer view them as leftist victories. The week-end was won by unions, even the right to vote in general was not something that was freely given by the ruling class.
I also disagree that it's not good enough to just point the problems of capitalism, I think it's pretty important to do so rather than stand for a particular alternative. I don't have all the answers for the replacement and I don't want to craft the whole plan alone. If everyone agrees with GH on what's wrong with capitalism, surely we can work together to find the better alternative, and surely that will be better than anything he could have come up with alone (no offense =) ).
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On a cultural level? Yes, pointing out Capitalism's problems is important. In this particular context? Not really. This particular space is more right-leaning than the main thread, and XDaunt is a staunch Capitalist who probably isn't going to engage in any discussion that involves just saying how shit capitalism is (save to defend it). I don't see that as a particularly interesting discussion, or one that leads to fertile debate fodder. The problems Green Horizons is tabling are the big ones of our time, so discussing how to tackle them needs to be a bit more than just dunking on Capitalism.
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On December 29 2018 20:13 iamthedave wrote:
On a cultural level? Yes, pointing out Capitalism's problems is important. In this particular context? Not really. This particular space is more right-leaning than the main thread, and XDaunt is a staunch Capitalist who probably isn't going to engage in any discussion that involves just saying how shit capitalism is (save to defend it). I don't see that as a particularly interesting discussion, or one that leads to fertile debate fodder. The problems Green Horizons is tabling are the big ones of our time, so discussing how to tackle them needs to be a bit more than just dunking on Capitalism.
So long as we recognize capitalism won't work we'll stop trying to "fix" it and work on implementing a replacement that can actually address those issues.
If you still think capitalism will work it needs to be dunked on more.
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On December 29 2018 16:52 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:On December 29 2018 05:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 05:03 IgnE wrote:On December 28 2018 14:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 07:50 Nouar wrote:On December 28 2018 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 02:35 Nouar wrote:On December 27 2018 13:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
After the first two years of Trump's presidency I feel reasonably confident neither major party can possibly address the problems we're facing now and in within our lifetimes.
If someone disagrees I'd love to hear how they think they could, I'll even grant 100% party control of every branch including the judiciary (once one has tried and failed in a more realistic political climate).
As long as humans are in charge, and the world made up of separate countries, with the most common form of government being democracy, running capitalism and trying to earn money individually instead of working towards the greater good and the planet ? I agree. Some countries made it work somewhat, with the population being overall really happy (northern Europe mainly), but it's going downhill due to other parts of the world. Do note that I do not know of a better solution that would not be a utopia, bound to fail after a few years due to human greed. (Any such solution would require to control a steady level of population, and we now enter the realm of unacceptable ethics...) On another note, your dear president : “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?” His tweet comes after on Christmas Day he said that federal workers back what he is doing, and have urged him to ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall.’
"These federal workers want the wall,” he said. “The only one that doesn't want the wall are the Democrats.” There's... a slight issue in these two statements :-D Socialism isn't utopia it's just a scientific approach to addressing the problems we face as opposed to the commercial approach capitalism takes. Surely eliminating bad social tendencies reinforced by capitalism (like greed) will take time and are unlikely to be completely eradicated by socialism, but the idea that greed is so overpowering that any system built on mutual respect and dignity will fail is something capitalists tell people to keep them trapped. The US stands in a unique position in that we are actively (and have been since it's origin) suppressing socialism/communism and simply not incessantly trying to destroy socialists would shift the whole globe away from capitalism (though not completely). As long as you have humans in charge, any system will gradually get corrupted by the individuals. And even if you manage to get perfect equality and no greed, then it becomes hard to see the result of hard work, since it leads to no improvements. People will then get lazy, and everything will start going down the drain. (I'll take a non-perfect exemple : the oil situation in Venezuela, where the state put unskilled workers in the oil company. Once a threshold was reached, things started to degenerate in the maintenance and operations of the oil industry, adding to the issues during the crisis.) I am too lazy to list all systems of government and all things that are bound to go wrong in each of them. I guess we have to find the less worse of the bunch, and try to find a balance to keep the planet alive ? Usually wars kept us humble and sort of served as a soft-reset. I don't know how it's going to work though, in a world where a full-scale war can mean the end of life on the planet. Obviously any effective system will have to adapt to changes in circumstances. My general point is that scientific socialism is a better system even if imperfect. On December 28 2018 09:04 IgnE wrote:
How about you draw up a list of the “problems we are facing” so we can see what you mean.
Climate change, water/energy shortages, and massive migrations away from uninhabitable land to try to put a bow on it. But you could sprinkle in white nationalism, economic collapse and international conflict on top of that if you want. What about campaign finance reform? Yeah, they can't do that either. The centrist base just accepts it as an unfortunate inevitability. It really is remarkable how nimble the center is at balancing their critique of the status quo with their complicity in it's perpetuation. Nancy Pelosi has a wide-ranging campaign finance reform bill. The best since Newt's Republican revolution in the 90s. Have you seen it? Not before you mentioned it. It's cute though I guess? I guess the question is will Democrats carve away any real reform to get it passed Republicans in the senate and wipe their hands of the problem or just let it languish in the house and use it as their go to example of how they would totally fix campaign finance if only they didn't only try to make it happen when Republicans have the power to shut it down. I assume you were just trying to give me an ally-oop but I'm tired so I dont have a windmill in me.
Doesn't seem like Bernie talks much about it. It's not on his list of issues for the next Congress right? You could make a case that the single issue that both right and left agree on the most is that our representatives are 'corrupted' by moneyed interests, spending 80% of their time fundraising, and governing the rest of the time in line with special interests. You could also make the case that people's disaffection with government is the issue which precedes all the ones you were talking about, since people must believe their government is responsive and effective in order to gather an effective political will to do anything.
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On December 30 2018 01:21 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 16:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:On December 29 2018 05:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 05:03 IgnE wrote:On December 28 2018 14:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 07:50 Nouar wrote:On December 28 2018 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 02:35 Nouar wrote:On December 27 2018 13:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
After the first two years of Trump's presidency I feel reasonably confident neither major party can possibly address the problems we're facing now and in within our lifetimes.
If someone disagrees I'd love to hear how they think they could, I'll even grant 100% party control of every branch including the judiciary (once one has tried and failed in a more realistic political climate).
As long as humans are in charge, and the world made up of separate countries, with the most common form of government being democracy, running capitalism and trying to earn money individually instead of working towards the greater good and the planet ? I agree. Some countries made it work somewhat, with the population being overall really happy (northern Europe mainly), but it's going downhill due to other parts of the world. Do note that I do not know of a better solution that would not be a utopia, bound to fail after a few years due to human greed. (Any such solution would require to control a steady level of population, and we now enter the realm of unacceptable ethics...) On another note, your dear president : “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?” His tweet comes after on Christmas Day he said that federal workers back what he is doing, and have urged him to ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall.’
"These federal workers want the wall,” he said. “The only one that doesn't want the wall are the Democrats.” There's... a slight issue in these two statements :-D Socialism isn't utopia it's just a scientific approach to addressing the problems we face as opposed to the commercial approach capitalism takes. Surely eliminating bad social tendencies reinforced by capitalism (like greed) will take time and are unlikely to be completely eradicated by socialism, but the idea that greed is so overpowering that any system built on mutual respect and dignity will fail is something capitalists tell people to keep them trapped. The US stands in a unique position in that we are actively (and have been since it's origin) suppressing socialism/communism and simply not incessantly trying to destroy socialists would shift the whole globe away from capitalism (though not completely). As long as you have humans in charge, any system will gradually get corrupted by the individuals. And even if you manage to get perfect equality and no greed, then it becomes hard to see the result of hard work, since it leads to no improvements. People will then get lazy, and everything will start going down the drain. (I'll take a non-perfect exemple : the oil situation in Venezuela, where the state put unskilled workers in the oil company. Once a threshold was reached, things started to degenerate in the maintenance and operations of the oil industry, adding to the issues during the crisis.) I am too lazy to list all systems of government and all things that are bound to go wrong in each of them. I guess we have to find the less worse of the bunch, and try to find a balance to keep the planet alive ? Usually wars kept us humble and sort of served as a soft-reset. I don't know how it's going to work though, in a world where a full-scale war can mean the end of life on the planet. Obviously any effective system will have to adapt to changes in circumstances. My general point is that scientific socialism is a better system even if imperfect. On December 28 2018 09:04 IgnE wrote:
How about you draw up a list of the “problems we are facing” so we can see what you mean.
Climate change, water/energy shortages, and massive migrations away from uninhabitable land to try to put a bow on it. But you could sprinkle in white nationalism, economic collapse and international conflict on top of that if you want. What about campaign finance reform? Yeah, they can't do that either. The centrist base just accepts it as an unfortunate inevitability. It really is remarkable how nimble the center is at balancing their critique of the status quo with their complicity in it's perpetuation. Nancy Pelosi has a wide-ranging campaign finance reform bill. The best since Newt's Republican revolution in the 90s. Have you seen it? Not before you mentioned it. It's cute though I guess? I guess the question is will Democrats carve away any real reform to get it passed Republicans in the senate and wipe their hands of the problem or just let it languish in the house and use it as their go to example of how they would totally fix campaign finance if only they didn't only try to make it happen when Republicans have the power to shut it down. I assume you were just trying to give me an ally-oop but I'm tired so I dont have a windmill in me. Doesn't seem like Bernie talks much about it. It's not on his list of issues for the next Congress right? You could make a case that the single issue that both right and left agree on the most is that our representatives are 'corrupted' by moneyed interests, spending 80% of their time fundraising, and governing the rest of the time in line with special interests. You could also make the case that people's disaffection with government is the issue which precedes all the ones you were talking about, since people must believe their government is responsive and effective in order to gather an effective political will to do anything.
I think it's somewhat implied in his "rigged system" rhetoric but it's certainly something he could be much more explicit about. I agree as well that it's deeply pervasive and impedes progress at every front.
That being said as Nancy Pelosi made clear "Democrats are capitalists" so there's not an actual ideological opposition to a few wealthy people having outsized influence, they just want to change the optics.
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On December 29 2018 20:13 iamthedave wrote:
On a cultural level? Yes, pointing out Capitalism's problems is important. In this particular context? Not really. This particular space is more right-leaning than the main thread, and XDaunt is a staunch Capitalist who probably isn't going to engage in any discussion that involves just saying how shit capitalism is (save to defend it). I don't see that as a particularly interesting discussion, or one that leads to fertile debate fodder. The problems Green Horizons is tabling are the big ones of our time, so discussing how to tackle them needs to be a bit more than just dunking on Capitalism.
I have made very specific criticisms of capitalism in this thread, but you are correct in that I am not in favor of chucking the system outright.
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On December 30 2018 02:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 20:13 iamthedave wrote:
On a cultural level? Yes, pointing out Capitalism's problems is important. In this particular context? Not really. This particular space is more right-leaning than the main thread, and XDaunt is a staunch Capitalist who probably isn't going to engage in any discussion that involves just saying how shit capitalism is (save to defend it). I don't see that as a particularly interesting discussion, or one that leads to fertile debate fodder. The problems Green Horizons is tabling are the big ones of our time, so discussing how to tackle them needs to be a bit more than just dunking on Capitalism. I have made very specific criticisms of capitalism in this thread, but you are correct in that I am not in favor of chucking the system outright.
I mean you're to the left of Democratic leadership on socializing healthcare so I'm more hopeful about you than plenty of Democrats. I don't think I'll turn you any time soon but when shit hits the fan I think you'll think twice about being a bullet shield for your capitalist superiors.
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On December 30 2018 02:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2018 20:13 iamthedave wrote:
On a cultural level? Yes, pointing out Capitalism's problems is important. In this particular context? Not really. This particular space is more right-leaning than the main thread, and XDaunt is a staunch Capitalist who probably isn't going to engage in any discussion that involves just saying how shit capitalism is (save to defend it). I don't see that as a particularly interesting discussion, or one that leads to fertile debate fodder. The problems Green Horizons is tabling are the big ones of our time, so discussing how to tackle them needs to be a bit more than just dunking on Capitalism. I have made very specific criticisms of capitalism in this thread, but you are correct in that I am not in favor of chucking the system outright.
I didn't mean to imply that you're an unthinking Capitalist. But I've seen plenty of comments from you that suggest you believe that Capitalism is the best system overall, with quibbles over implementation being accepted. I believe you once made the classic 'free markets - free people' equation that I'd consider a Capitalist cornerstone... I think when you were still in the other thread and people were arguing about Venezuala.
How do you feel Capitalism can best adjust to the particular threats GH outlined earlier? (Global Warming/Mass Migrations as a result thereof etc.)
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On December 30 2018 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2018 01:21 IgnE wrote:On December 29 2018 16:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:On December 29 2018 05:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 05:03 IgnE wrote:On December 28 2018 14:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 07:50 Nouar wrote:On December 28 2018 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 02:35 Nouar wrote:
[quote]
As long as humans are in charge, and the world made up of separate countries, with the most common form of government being democracy, running capitalism and trying to earn money individually instead of working towards the greater good and the planet ? I agree.
Some countries made it work somewhat, with the population being overall really happy (northern Europe mainly), but it's going downhill due to other parts of the world.
Do note that I do not know of a better solution that would not be a utopia, bound to fail after a few years due to human greed.
(Any such solution would require to control a steady level of population, and we now enter the realm of unacceptable ethics...)
On another note, your dear president :
[quote]
[quote]
There's... a slight issue in these two statements :-D Socialism isn't utopia it's just a scientific approach to addressing the problems we face as opposed to the commercial approach capitalism takes. Surely eliminating bad social tendencies reinforced by capitalism (like greed) will take time and are unlikely to be completely eradicated by socialism, but the idea that greed is so overpowering that any system built on mutual respect and dignity will fail is something capitalists tell people to keep them trapped. The US stands in a unique position in that we are actively (and have been since it's origin) suppressing socialism/communism and simply not incessantly trying to destroy socialists would shift the whole globe away from capitalism (though not completely). As long as you have humans in charge, any system will gradually get corrupted by the individuals. And even if you manage to get perfect equality and no greed, then it becomes hard to see the result of hard work, since it leads to no improvements. People will then get lazy, and everything will start going down the drain. (I'll take a non-perfect exemple : the oil situation in Venezuela, where the state put unskilled workers in the oil company. Once a threshold was reached, things started to degenerate in the maintenance and operations of the oil industry, adding to the issues during the crisis.) I am too lazy to list all systems of government and all things that are bound to go wrong in each of them. I guess we have to find the less worse of the bunch, and try to find a balance to keep the planet alive ? Usually wars kept us humble and sort of served as a soft-reset. I don't know how it's going to work though, in a world where a full-scale war can mean the end of life on the planet. Obviously any effective system will have to adapt to changes in circumstances. My general point is that scientific socialism is a better system even if imperfect. On December 28 2018 09:04 IgnE wrote:
How about you draw up a list of the “problems we are facing” so we can see what you mean.
Climate change, water/energy shortages, and massive migrations away from uninhabitable land to try to put a bow on it. But you could sprinkle in white nationalism, economic collapse and international conflict on top of that if you want. What about campaign finance reform? Yeah, they can't do that either. The centrist base just accepts it as an unfortunate inevitability. It really is remarkable how nimble the center is at balancing their critique of the status quo with their complicity in it's perpetuation. Nancy Pelosi has a wide-ranging campaign finance reform bill. The best since Newt's Republican revolution in the 90s. Have you seen it? Not before you mentioned it. It's cute though I guess? I guess the question is will Democrats carve away any real reform to get it passed Republicans in the senate and wipe their hands of the problem or just let it languish in the house and use it as their go to example of how they would totally fix campaign finance if only they didn't only try to make it happen when Republicans have the power to shut it down. I assume you were just trying to give me an ally-oop but I'm tired so I dont have a windmill in me. Doesn't seem like Bernie talks much about it. It's not on his list of issues for the next Congress right? You could make a case that the single issue that both right and left agree on the most is that our representatives are 'corrupted' by moneyed interests, spending 80% of their time fundraising, and governing the rest of the time in line with special interests. You could also make the case that people's disaffection with government is the issue which precedes all the ones you were talking about, since people must believe their government is responsive and effective in order to gather an effective political will to do anything. I think it's somewhat implied in his "rigged system" rhetoric but it's certainly something he could be much more explicit about. I agree as well that it's deeply pervasive and impedes progress at every front. That being said as Nancy Pelosi made clear "Democrats are capitalists" so there's not an actual ideological opposition to a few wealthy people having outsized influence, they just want to change the optics.
two things to consider:
1) bernie has been in Congress his whole life and so maybe hes so deeply entrenched in the money-raising game that he can’t see it
2) rather than only considering “ideological opposition” maybe we should be looking at the actual institutional and procedural effects that any proposed course of action will have — i have grown quite tired of repeating banalities, especially in the face of a totally captured governmental system. what does a bernie presidency even look like without public funding of political campaigns? he himself said his program would require a massive political movement that affected elections at every level. how is that going to happen within the current campaign constraints?
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On December 30 2018 02:54 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2018 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 30 2018 01:21 IgnE wrote:On December 29 2018 16:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:On December 29 2018 05:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2018 05:03 IgnE wrote:On December 28 2018 14:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 28 2018 07:50 Nouar wrote:On December 28 2018 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Socialism isn't utopia it's just a scientific approach to addressing the problems we face as opposed to the commercial approach capitalism takes.
Surely eliminating bad social tendencies reinforced by capitalism (like greed) will take time and are unlikely to be completely eradicated by socialism, but the idea that greed is so overpowering that any system built on mutual respect and dignity will fail is something capitalists tell people to keep them trapped.
The US stands in a unique position in that we are actively (and have been since it's origin) suppressing socialism/communism and simply not incessantly trying to destroy socialists would shift the whole globe away from capitalism (though not completely). As long as you have humans in charge, any system will gradually get corrupted by the individuals. And even if you manage to get perfect equality and no greed, then it becomes hard to see the result of hard work, since it leads to no improvements. People will then get lazy, and everything will start going down the drain. (I'll take a non-perfect exemple : the oil situation in Venezuela, where the state put unskilled workers in the oil company. Once a threshold was reached, things started to degenerate in the maintenance and operations of the oil industry, adding to the issues during the crisis.) I am too lazy to list all systems of government and all things that are bound to go wrong in each of them. I guess we have to find the less worse of the bunch, and try to find a balance to keep the planet alive ? Usually wars kept us humble and sort of served as a soft-reset. I don't know how it's going to work though, in a world where a full-scale war can mean the end of life on the planet. Obviously any effective system will have to adapt to changes in circumstances. My general point is that scientific socialism is a better system even if imperfect. On December 28 2018 09:04 IgnE wrote:
How about you draw up a list of the “problems we are facing” so we can see what you mean.
Climate change, water/energy shortages, and massive migrations away from uninhabitable land to try to put a bow on it. But you could sprinkle in white nationalism, economic collapse and international conflict on top of that if you want. What about campaign finance reform? Yeah, they can't do that either. The centrist base just accepts it as an unfortunate inevitability. It really is remarkable how nimble the center is at balancing their critique of the status quo with their complicity in it's perpetuation. Nancy Pelosi has a wide-ranging campaign finance reform bill. The best since Newt's Republican revolution in the 90s. Have you seen it? Not before you mentioned it. It's cute though I guess? I guess the question is will Democrats carve away any real reform to get it passed Republicans in the senate and wipe their hands of the problem or just let it languish in the house and use it as their go to example of how they would totally fix campaign finance if only they didn't only try to make it happen when Republicans have the power to shut it down. I assume you were just trying to give me an ally-oop but I'm tired so I dont have a windmill in me. Doesn't seem like Bernie talks much about it. It's not on his list of issues for the next Congress right? You could make a case that the single issue that both right and left agree on the most is that our representatives are 'corrupted' by moneyed interests, spending 80% of their time fundraising, and governing the rest of the time in line with special interests. You could also make the case that people's disaffection with government is the issue which precedes all the ones you were talking about, since people must believe their government is responsive and effective in order to gather an effective political will to do anything. I think it's somewhat implied in his "rigged system" rhetoric but it's certainly something he could be much more explicit about. I agree as well that it's deeply pervasive and impedes progress at every front. That being said as Nancy Pelosi made clear "Democrats are capitalists" so there's not an actual ideological opposition to a few wealthy people having outsized influence, they just want to change the optics. two things to consider: 1) bernie has been in Congress his whole life and so maybe hes so deeply entrenched in the money-raising game that he can’t see it 2) rather than only considering “ideological opposition” maybe we should be looking at the actual institutional and procedural effects that any proposed course of action will have — i have grown quite tired of repeating banalities, especially in the face of a totally captured governmental system. what does a bernie presidency even look like without public funding of political campaigns? he himself said his program would require a massive political movement that affected elections at every level. how is that going to happen within the current campaign constraints?
1) Yes and no. He's gotta see it but he might not see a way out and therefor conceded the ground.
2) Agreed. This is why I'm mostly of the opinion that our system is so far gone that it's incapable of course correcting. That there aren't electoral solutions to the problems we face, at least not anymore since climate change gives us some relatively hard deadlines that makes our perpetual can kicking unsustainable.
Just for some general perspective I think Bernie is a band-aid on a bullet wound, but the rest of the field is more like using leeches to get the demons out.
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so no point in even engaging in electoral politics right?
or, maybe, focusing on electoral reform is something worth doing? maybe nancy pelosi redeems herself?
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On December 30 2018 03:34 IgnE wrote:
so no point in even engaging in electoral politics right?
or, maybe, focusing on electoral reform is something worth doing? maybe nancy pelosi redeems herself?
Not for the point of using incremental half-measures to secure some more wealth before the planet goes to shit.
She's good at what she does, it's just not good for us.
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in what sense is it a half-measure? because it is not total revolution?
bernie is also a half-measure in that sense. i better not see you stumping for anyone in a year or so if your position is revolution or nothing.
my whole point is that her reform bill does seem good for us. and by us i mean everyone fed up with Congress, on the left, in the midde, and even on the right.
disclaimer: at least it seems good on its surface, i havent dived into every detail
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EPT
