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Not that it matters, or that I even care, but most studies and surveys put France ahead of America in terms of "best countries to live in." And although our GDP is monstrously huge in America that doesn't always translate to much other than we, as a country, have a ton of money. Unemployment between France and America is pretty comparable. It's something like 9% in both countries (though admittedly it's slightly higher in France). I think inflation is pretty irrelevant. Although comparisons between the two countries are pretty pointless. No one at Occupy Wall Street is trying to get the French to revolt or protest.
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On November 16 2011 08:38 mechavoc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 08:32 Logo wrote:On November 16 2011 07:44 mechavoc wrote:On November 16 2011 07:26 NB wrote:
WHAT THE FUCK.... reading this thread actually make me not regretting going to canada instead of US... wow some of you guys are unbelievable....
no wonder US is where they are today :-/ fucking ignorance and afraid of changes not gona get humankind anywhere... Change is not always for the better. It would be a faulty leap to assume a desire for stability stems from ignorance and fear. Perhaps you need to look from a different point of view and appreciate that there is already a mechanism in place to make changes. If 51% of the people (or heck even 99%) of the people want a socialist system, they can elect such a government. Compare this to the Occupy Syria event where the government users tanks and warplanes to discourage the sharing of alternate views. Protesting is part of that system for what it's worth. You are right, but every group needs to follow the rules which includes not camping overnight simple as that.
Or they can occupy overnight and choose to suffer the consequences (which they did).
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On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract.
Imaginary social contract?
Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right?
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On November 16 2011 09:57 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 09:47 mechavoc wrote:On November 16 2011 08:50 WhiteDog wrote:
This thread is so full of brain washed right wing bullshit it's amazing. You shall not protest because "small business and commerce" suffer from it. When a a judge issue an injunction that goes with the protest, then it's a "bullshit injunction" and the judge is just biaised. Yeah who cares if he is representing the law, if he help the protest in any way then he must but a "little OWSer at heart".
But damn, when people are arrested, they just get what they wanted for not "respecting the law".
Another guy wants protests to become illegal, and then say revolutions are "un-american"... So making protests illegal is american ? Give the lady of Liberty to someone else, feel like you are not deserving it anymore.
The shit is not serious. Just say you are okay with the way the wealth is redistributed right now, and move on. Stop polluting the thread. Just because people have a diffent view doesn't mean they are brainwashed. France has a long and proud history of protesting. They may be the worlds greatest protestors. So you would think it should be the best place to live with the people speaking so loudly and so often with all of those demonstrations and sit-ins and farmers blocking the chunnel . So shall we compare things like per capita GDP, Inflation, Unemployment rate? Your post doesn't make any sense. I was saying some are brainwashed because their argument are not coherent : "let's remove their right to protest !", this judge is "an OWSer at heart". We are not talking about the subject, just about : can you or can you not protest, why are the protesters "scum", how did the protest arm people, etc. It's just an indirect way to deny their right to protest, to tell them: "you should not protest". It's just polluting the thread. Talk about the real subject : are those revendication serious ? What are the protester talking about ? In what way are you against or okay with those revendications ? Like what people are discussing since one or two page, this is interesting. Not the obvious agressivity that comes out of some comments. You know nothing about France by the way, and the end of your post is ridiculous. At what point in my post did I even imply the fact that more protest = more happiness ? And what is the link with the economical shit you are trying to throw at me ? Do you think capita GPD, inflation or unemployment rate are the best way to understand what is the "best place to live" ?
1.People's right to protest is the most important right in the US, it is the first amendment. People have the right to free speech no one is contesting that. They do not however have the right to break laws and ignore rules for using public spaces in exercising that right.
2. Please educate me on France then.
The thought that your initial post gave me was that more protesting leads to more progress in a society which in turn would lead to a higher standard of living.
The Best place to live is usually measured in economic terms. For example I would say Norway has a higher standard of living than the US based on their clearly superior economic measures, along with their progressive social policies. I would think right now Norway is a better place to live than the US.
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On November 16 2011 10:25 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice. Show nested quote +
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right?
There is not one theory of the Social Contract and the differences between Hobbes and Rousseau are HUGE lol, i don't think that Hobbes considered the economic aspect whereas Rousseau advocates the abolition of the property in Discours sur le fondement de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.
Rousseau's Social Contract is designed for pre industrial cities like his main source of inspiration, Geneva where direct democracy worked to some extend. However Rousseau was conscious of the limits of his own theory, you just need to take a look to his late works like his projects of constitution for Corsica and Poland.
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On November 16 2011 10:18 overt wrote:
Not that it matters, or that I even care, but most studies and surveys put France ahead of America in terms of "best countries to live in." And although our GDP is monstrously huge in America that doesn't always translate to much other than we, as a country, have a ton of money. Unemployment between France and America is pretty comparable. It's something like 9% in both countries (though admittedly it's slightly higher in France). I think inflation is pretty irrelevant. Although comparisons between the two countries are pretty pointless. No one at Occupy Wall Street is trying to get the French to revolt or protest.
I agree France and US are very similar, I was just trying to point out that while protests like this are pretty rare in US history they are not so rare in French history.
Even though people try to bring out change in very different ways in the two countires the results are pretty much the same at the end of it to counter the argument that protests like this are the only way or the most affective way of making a change to the system.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 16 2011 10:34 Boblion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:25 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right? There is not one theory of the Social Contract and the differences between Hobbes and Rousseau are HUGE lol, i don't think that Hobbes considered the economic aspect whereas Rousseau advocates the abolition of the property in Discours sur le fondement de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.Rousseau's Social Contract is designed for pre industrial cities like his main source of inspiration, Geneva where direct democracy worked to some extend. However Rousseau was conscious of the limits of his own theory, you just need to take a look to his late works like his projects of constitution for Corsica and Poland.
Actually, my question is about scalability. In all variants, there are limited enforcement of good faith utility of the social contract. Difference in derivation or policy doesn't concern scalability problems. They will, however, change the threshold when bad faith exploitation of social contract dominates and when the society is too big for the intimacy of relationships implied by the "social contract."
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On November 16 2011 10:38 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:34 Boblion wrote:On November 16 2011 10:25 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right? There is not one theory of the Social Contract and the differences between Hobbes and Rousseau are HUGE lol, i don't think that Hobbes considered the economic aspect whereas Rousseau advocates the abolition of the property in Discours sur le fondement de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.Rousseau's Social Contract is designed for pre industrial cities like his main source of inspiration, Geneva where direct democracy worked to some extend. However Rousseau was conscious of the limits of his own theory, you just need to take a look to his late works like his projects of constitution for Corsica and Poland. Actually, my question is about scalability. In all variants, there are limited enforcement of good faith utility of the social contract. Difference in derivation or policy doesn't concern scalability problems. They will, however, change the threshold when bad faith exploitation of social contract dominates and when the society is too big for the intimacy of relationships implied by the "social contract."
You should probably pick the book up and read it. If you want to keep discussing Rousseau then please do so but for the love of god don't speculate about Rawls work with Rousseau as a starting base.
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On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well.
First, to make that argument viable at all in the real world, you must first ensure equality of opportunity, or in terms of your analogy, you must ensure that every person who wants to get an education and work hard for his degree can get what they want, regardless of how rich their parents are. Since we don't live in a clan or tribe based society, every citizen should be treated as an individual and provided equal opportunity.
Second, how exactly do you quantify "harder" work? It's physically impossible for someone to work even a hundred times (let alone a million times) harder than another working person, yet the income distribution suggests this is the case. In our (global) society, highest earners (individually) are people who make absolutely nothing and provide no immediate services or contribute to the society in a direct way. They acquire wealth by "playing" the system, they essentially leech off of people who actually do work - so what are they being rewarded for exactly?
Third, that argument is inherently individualistic - it's made so that it appeals to every single person, but at the same time disregards the society as a whole. Let's even ignore the origin of someone's wealth, what does being wealthy in general allows a person to do? He can have 3 private jets, an island, and can afford boundless personal luxury. On the other end there are people who can barely afford to pay food and rent. Doesn't this imbalance strike you as somewhat absurd and problematic?
Even if you have zero empathy (which seems to be something many people today pride themselves for), and even in a perfectly economically healthy society, this disparity is still problematic. Luxury aside, wealth allows you to do more things and have greater influence over your society. You can't set "corruption aside", because it ultimately is a by-product of the system. The wealth disparity inevitably translates to the power disparity. This skews the system as the power in the society becomes too concentrated in a narrow circle, with a tendency of getting ever narrower, especially without the equalizing mechanisms in place to pull it forcibly the other way (ie. taxes).
The biggest problem with that argument is the idea of "deserving". It's easy to say some people deserve to be more wealthy than the others (even though the criteria may be completely arbitrary). But on the other end, can you say that a large percentile of people deserves to live in poverty and suffering everything poverty entails? That's a much harder argument to make, at least if one claims to adhere to the principles of democracy and basic morality.
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This movement has turned into a joke. Nobody has any answers. We're just a bunch of monkeys screaming at each other waiting to die.
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On November 16 2011 10:38 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:34 Boblion wrote:On November 16 2011 10:25 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right? There is not one theory of the Social Contract and the differences between Hobbes and Rousseau are HUGE lol, i don't think that Hobbes considered the economic aspect whereas Rousseau advocates the abolition of the property in Discours sur le fondement de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.Rousseau's Social Contract is designed for pre industrial cities like his main source of inspiration, Geneva where direct democracy worked to some extend. However Rousseau was conscious of the limits of his own theory, you just need to take a look to his late works like his projects of constitution for Corsica and Poland. Actually, my question is about scalability. In all variants, there are limited enforcement of good faith utility of the social contract. Difference in derivation or policy doesn't concern scalability problems. They will, however, change the threshold when bad faith exploitation of social contract dominates and when the society is too big for the intimacy of relationships implied by the "social contract."
I think the problem lies in the definition of "social contract". It's really become more of a buzz word these days. You are criticizing Rousseau's version of direct democracy, and of course Rousseau even talks at length about the perils of a state that is too large in territory and/or population (On the Social Contract, Book II, Chapter X); but that has nothing at all to do with a Hobbesian social contract. Social contract theorists really don't have as much in common as most people seem to think.
I'm not that familiar with Rawls so I won't engage in that conversation, but I do like his "veil of ignorance" theory from my limited understanding of it. It's a fascinating way to approach the concept of justice.
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On November 16 2011 10:38 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:34 Boblion wrote:On November 16 2011 10:25 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right? There is not one theory of the Social Contract and the differences between Hobbes and Rousseau are HUGE lol, i don't think that Hobbes considered the economic aspect whereas Rousseau advocates the abolition of the property in Discours sur le fondement de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.Rousseau's Social Contract is designed for pre industrial cities like his main source of inspiration, Geneva where direct democracy worked to some extend. However Rousseau was conscious of the limits of his own theory, you just need to take a look to his late works like his projects of constitution for Corsica and Poland. Actually, my question is about scalability. In all variants, there are limited enforcement of good faith utility of the social contract. Difference in derivation or policy doesn't concern scalability problems. They will, however, change the threshold when bad faith exploitation of social contract dominates and when the society is too big for the intimacy of relationships implied by the "social contract."
Oh yea but Rousseau's core works are usually thought to be the main source ( pre socialist ) for left-wing totalitarism anyway. If you can read between the lines of the Du Contrat Social you see that his conception of the democracy is the dictatorship of the majority. He has ( at least in the book ) no problem with denying all kind of rights to the minority 
Ex: "Si donc le pacte social s'y trouve des opposants, leur opposition n'invalide pas le contrat, elle empêche seulement qu'ils n'y soient compris; ce sont des étrangers parmi les citoyens"
You can see why Arendt said that human rights have little value without citizenship rights lol.
edit: The old thinkers didn't really talk about "scalability" they just wanted to explain how the societies were created and for Rousseau to create the "best" form of society. Now i don't really know Rawls so i can't say if he has theorized something related.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 16 2011 10:48 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:38 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 10:34 Boblion wrote:On November 16 2011 10:25 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 10:23 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 10:14 TanGeng wrote:On November 16 2011 09:12 HellRoxYa wrote:On November 16 2011 09:02 Superiorwolf wrote:
I've been arguing with conservatives a lot and their one main argument is that if someone works hard, they deserve to be making more money and not paying more taxes. He argued that corruption and lobbyism aside, someone like an anesthesiologist who has worked hard through medical school and residency and such deserves to be making $500,000 a year and should not be taxed more. What's the best counterargument to that? I agree that those who work harder should be rewarded more as well. Sure, but there's also reasonable levels of reward. Very few people (anywhere) argue that hard work shouldn't pay off. Anyway, to answer your question more generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Is this Rousseau's social contract because that is probably the epitome of an unscalable social construct. It's curious at the level of a district or town, stretched thin at the size of a city, barely plausible for 5 million people, and completely ridiculous for 300 million. You might be a popular person and have good relations with 10,000 people and that's still not scratching 1/100 of one percent of everyone that you are "supposed to care about." The dominate relationship is indifference, not some imaginary sensation that we're all in it together and everyone bar none is going to be acting with both generosity and good faith. It's like forcing 100 total strangers to come up with ways to care about each other while prohibiting them from ever ever seeing each other once in their lifetime. Then muddy the waters with issues of race and religion, toss in some stereotypes of rednecks, liburals, repub, grifters, and greedy bastards, and then watch "caring" happen. Besides, there'll be plenty of people taking advantage of the imagined up generosity and good faith. The bailouts were passed under the guise of the common good or greater good and look how happy people are about that. But discussing distributive justice is still worthwhile. It's a nice ideal to build society towards, and the world would be hell of a lot better if people acted with both generosity and good faith. Distributive justice, however, is not actionable via an imaginary social contract. Imaginary social contract? Nothing you said has anything at all to do with Rawls other than the words distributive justice.
Like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition. However, Rawls' social contract takes a slightly different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an entirely and deliberately artificial device he calls the Original position in which everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves that might cloud what their notion of justice is
That is from your own link, right? There is not one theory of the Social Contract and the differences between Hobbes and Rousseau are HUGE lol, i don't think that Hobbes considered the economic aspect whereas Rousseau advocates the abolition of the property in Discours sur le fondement de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.Rousseau's Social Contract is designed for pre industrial cities like his main source of inspiration, Geneva where direct democracy worked to some extend. However Rousseau was conscious of the limits of his own theory, you just need to take a look to his late works like his projects of constitution for Corsica and Poland. Actually, my question is about scalability. In all variants, there are limited enforcement of good faith utility of the social contract. Difference in derivation or policy doesn't concern scalability problems. They will, however, change the threshold when bad faith exploitation of social contract dominates and when the society is too big for the intimacy of relationships implied by the "social contract." You should probably pick the book up and read it. If you want to keep discussing Rousseau then please do so but for the love of god don't speculate about Rawls work with Rousseau as a starting base.
So you, who brought up Rawl's A Theory of Justice, do you have Rawl's rebuttal?
Rousseau's social contract would break down very fast. It looks like Rawl's doesn't have such glaring overreaches, but if it is a social contract, it always begs the question of its scalability.
It'd only be interesting read if Rawls tried to address it. If Rawls didn't, I'd doubt its efficacy for a city, never mind consider it a valid proposal for a politic like the US.
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Hey guys, in what classes did you guys read all these books ? I'm just wondering because I graduated from college, pursuing a course of study that landed me successful employment ever since, and I've never read the works that you guys are so intelligently discussing.
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On November 16 2011 10:49 Hexadecimal wrote:
This movement has turned into a joke. Nobody has any answers. We're just a bunch of monkeys screaming at each other waiting to die.
and this is different from fox news, the main source of criticism, how?
On November 16 2011 06:32 Kaitlin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 06:30 ElJefe wrote:For the record, the 6th Amendment Right to Counsel kicks in at 1) indictment, 2) information, or 3) initial appearance. None of these generally occur within your 12 hours of being arrested. I'm pretty sure the earliest (initial appearance) has about a 3 day window. Actually you always have your 6th amendment right. You have the right to counsel even if you are being questioned in a crime you are not even a suspect of. I said the "6th Amendment" right to counsel. The "6th Amendment" right to counsel kicks in when I said it does. Before that, one's right to counsel falls under the due process clause of the 5th Amendment.
a little off topic but, if thats the case whats the point of the 6th amendment?
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On November 16 2011 11:07 Kaitlin wrote:
Hey guys, in what classes did you guys read all these books ? I'm just wondering because I graduated from college, pursuing a course of study that landed me successful employment ever since, and I've never read the works that you guys are so intelligently discussing.
In France you are introduced to Rousseau in highschool because he is quite famous here ( although he was not French ) but you usually won't read his political texts.
You will have to wait to study Political Science or History at the university.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 16 2011 10:54 Boblion wrote:
Ex: "Si donc le pacte social s'y trouve des opposants, leur opposition n'invalide pas le contrat, elle empêche seulement qu'ils n'y soient compris; ce sont des étrangers parmi les citoyens"
You can see why Arendt said that human rights have little value without citizenship rights lol.
edit: The old thinkers didn't really talk about "scalability" they just wanted to explain how the societies were created and for Rousseau to create the "best" form of society. Now i don't really know Rawls so i can't say if he has theorized something related.
Hehe. There are some very "interesting" parts of Rousseau. The old philosophers are valuable, and distributive justice as well, for the values that their theories and/or utopias represent (but sometimes they leak monsters through the tiniest logical fault lines.)
They don't strike me as a good source for actionable policy proposals.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 16 2011 11:11 turdburgler wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:49 Hexadecimal wrote:
This movement has turned into a joke. Nobody has any answers. We're just a bunch of monkeys screaming at each other waiting to die. and this is different from fox news, the main source of criticism, how? Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 06:32 Kaitlin wrote:On November 16 2011 06:30 ElJefe wrote:For the record, the 6th Amendment Right to Counsel kicks in at 1) indictment, 2) information, or 3) initial appearance. None of these generally occur within your 12 hours of being arrested. I'm pretty sure the earliest (initial appearance) has about a 3 day window. Actually you always have your 6th amendment right. You have the right to counsel even if you are being questioned in a crime you are not even a suspect of. I said the "6th Amendment" right to counsel. The "6th Amendment" right to counsel kicks in when I said it does. Before that, one's right to counsel falls under the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. a little off topic but, if thats the case whats the point of the 6th amendment?
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
#1 jury of peers (you are not to be tried and convicted by a magistrate of the state)
#2 jurisdiction of trial (you are not to be hauled for trial away from peers)
#3 right to defense during trial and challenge witnesses of the crime
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So despite the increasingly desperate sounding claims in this thread about the movement being dead, it seems they've already retaken the park.
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EPT
