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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 04:02 sam!zdat wrote:
But the real question is, who is going to sit on the stool? And what are they going to do with themselves during this period of sitting?
Well, ideally the person sitting on the stool is the American people, and what they're doing with it is strengthening the legs of the stool and making it taller and wider so more people can sit on it and be higher.
EDIT: okay, this has gotten a little off-track. The point is that you can't get by on just one leg, which is why infrastructure is important, but so is hard work, and neither alone can get by.
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The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure.
I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please?
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On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please?
Because he hates freedom, obviously, and is therefore a nazi.
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On July 26 2012 02:34 Budmandude wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 02:28 aksfjh wrote:On July 26 2012 02:18 Budmandude wrote:On July 26 2012 01:48 DoubleReed wrote:
Pffff, who builds a stool with three legs? Sounds like commie talk to me. Someone give this poster a medal for being so witty and contributing so much to this thread! ------------------------------------ Wow this is amazing, you guys missed my point entirely. Infrastructure is constant for all people in the United States, therefor it has no impact on the success rate of businesses in the United States (which is what we are talking about by the way). If it had such a large impact, then why doesn't every business succeed? Every business owner (and citizen with an IQ higher than 50) knows that roads are important, and that everyone pays for them, but it's a constant and therefore not relevant when it comes to talking about successful businesses in the united states, so why draw attention to it when talking about businesses succeeding? I've never seen anyone, business owner or conservative, arguing against the government keeping up roads, bridges, fire, and police so why bother bringing it up other than to just pat yourself on the back for a business you didn't have any part in building or making successful? (remember, they paid for it as well) Additionally, what lead to the infrastructure being built? Oh, that's right, business and trade! Which existed first: the mining town in Nevada, or the railroad that went past it? The government owes everything to business, not the other way around. By the way, roads were dirt before the Model-T, the automotive industry is the reason that the Department of Transportation is so successful, so why aren't we talking about that?! Also, now people are seriously arguing that luck is the make-or-break in whether a business succeeds or not? If that's the case why doesn't everyone just roll the dice to see if they can be the next millionaire? They don't, because that's not the largest contributor; the market research, business plan, accounting, employee selection, location, smart inventory, and risk and brutal amounts of work that are the real major contributors. Finally, you missed the most important part of my post, but I guess that's my fault for putting it at the bottom. So here we go, I'm not putting it at the bottom again! (and adding clarification in brackets) On July 26 2012 01:17 Budmandude wrote:
In this speech he listed constants (society, infrastructure) as if they were the variables. This leads to a perception of an attack on small business [no matter what was intended], and perception is reality. This line is to make sure the quote isn't at the bottom of my post tl;dr: Stop being lazy in a discussion thread and read my post. Except many Republicans are all too willing to sacrifice these things to "balance budgets" while giving tax breaks to people who insist their success is theirs alone. Entitlement programs != roads, police, fire, etc.
Maybe you missed the massive layoffs of public sector employees in the past 4 years due to constrained state and local budgets. Texas even went as far as to fire teachers before dipping into part of its accrued savings from surplus years.
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On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please?
I know you're being facetious but I'll address this anyways because I think we need to think seriously through the consequences of these policies that being tossed around.
The question is not what it takes to be successful, we all know that. But the more important question is what do you do with all the people who can't or won't do the things to be successful? The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence. And that is what is so dangerous about drastically increasing government spending.
Now, you may still be okay with aggressive government policy and taking the risk of injustice if there's a compelling reason. If the choice is we need to build infrastructure or the US will suffer economic degradation for the next 30 years or lose a big war, then maybe we need to take that risk and accept that it's for the greater good. I just don't see it that way right now.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 04:28 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please? I know you're being facetious but I'll address this anyways because I think we need to think seriously through the consequences of these policies that being tossed around. The question is not what it takes to be successful, we all know that. But the more important question is what do you do with all the people who can't or won't do the things to be successful? The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence. And that is what is so dangerous about drastically increasing government spending.
I'm not being facetious, I'm 100% serious-- I wanted to know what your train of thought was. I didn't propose to build costly policies, I didn't propose an intolerance of failure or dissidence. I didn't even propose a drastic increase of government spending. I don't know HOW the idea that "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck" leads to eugenics and indentured servitude.
I don't think a massive state that controls everyone and punishes the unsuccessful, as you suggest, is a natural outcome from "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck"... I think making sure people have access to affordable education, and free public schooling K-12, along with working roads and public safety... is the outcome. Please explain in more detail how you logic is working here.
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On July 26 2012 04:28 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please? I know you're being facetious but I'll address this anyways because I think we need to think seriously through the consequences of these policies that being tossed around. The question is not what it takes to be successful, we all know that. But the more important question is what do you do with all the people who can't or won't do the things to be successful? The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence. And that is what is so dangerous about drastically increasing government spending.
Except that when speaking so generally the idiosyncrasies of specific policies fall by the wayside, and just like that, we end up talking of eugenics and birthright actuaries instead of issues at hand. Take the budgetary realities of Obamacare, for instance. Contrary to your dynamic of the ever-increasing cost of providing for failure, society at large will actually save money when we collectively provide for the disadvantaged. The same idea applies to pretty much every form of politicized morality, from abortion rights to drug control. In countries and systems in which treatment for addiction and pregnancy mishaps are directly provided for by the government, rates of addiction are down and unplanned pregnancies are down as well. What progressives are standing by is the notion that an appropriately extensive relationship between the public at large and the size of government actually increases society's ability to tolerate failure and dissidence, rather than weaken it.
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On July 26 2012 04:28 coverpunch wrote:
The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence.
This step seems questionable to me.
The point is to build locally sustainable communities which don't require massive amounts of organization at the national level, and which don't have to look beyond themselves for any of their basic needs (and insulates them from global market shock)
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On July 26 2012 04:00 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 03:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 03:28 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 03:23 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 03:00 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 02:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 02:41 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 02:18 Budmandude wrote:
Infrastructure is constant for all people in the United States, therefor it has no impact on the success rate of businesses in the United States (which is what we are talking about by the way).
By that same logic, I shall assume that hard work has no impact on success because it's about as constant as infrastructure. So really, your parents' business success came from only one factor: luck. So MKP is successful only due to luck? Things like skill and ability are not factors? Surely this reply of yours is a joke, right? The context of the statement is that "assuming we control for / ignore hard work and pre-existing conditions and infrastructure" MKP's skill is a function of 3 legs: his hard work, the society / infrastructure that lets him do what he does, and his luck for being born in say, south korea instead of north korea, and with the raw materials, reflexes etc to become a progamer some day.
If we control for *hard work* and *infrastructure and pre-existing conditions*, then yes, MKP is successful cause he was lucky enough to be born with the raw attributes necessary to be a progamer, and Sc2 turned out to be a good game, and a million other factors that are necessary, which along with hard work and infrastructure made him who he is today. Like, did you even read the thread and discussion between badmandude, lightwip, and myself? How could you not know what we're talking about? Is this really a good-faith question you're asking, or are you intentionally misrepresenting budmandude, lightwip and myself? My mistake, I thought you were discussing something relevant. We are-- we're talking about different worldviews on how one comes to be successful, in the context of President Obama's recent speech in Roanoke. I'll refer you to this post (link) and the following discussion, should you choose to inform yourself before randomly making condescending (and subtly insulting) statements and asking bad-faith questions. You may as well be arguing over which is more important for breeding chickens - the pre-existing chickens (the infrastructure) or the willingness for the chickens to breed (the entrepreneurial activity). Both are necessary. Any discussion over which is more important in the grand scheme of things is nonsense. A fair point. All legs of the stool are necessary to hold it up. What if, say, one of the legs is broken or frayed, though? I don't think it's to unreasonable to say that perhaps we should shift our focus to an oft-neglected leg that has fallen into disrepair. I believe at the core of it, that was the President's message-- that the "infrastructure" leg of the "success" stool is neglected, and needs repair, and currently that's more important than the "luck" leg of the stool or the "hard work" leg of the stool. Without the "infrastructure" leg, the stool falls over.
Certainly the infrastructure needs to be fixed and expanded upon. The real question is how to pay for it.
Government used to be smaller yet we used to spend more on infrastructure as well. Size matters as much as priorities.
![[image loading]](http://media.economist.com/images/images-magazine/2011/04/30/us/20110430_usc609.gif)
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On July 26 2012 04:32 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:28 coverpunch wrote:On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please? I know you're being facetious but I'll address this anyways because I think we need to think seriously through the consequences of these policies that being tossed around. The question is not what it takes to be successful, we all know that. But the more important question is what do you do with all the people who can't or won't do the things to be successful? The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence. And that is what is so dangerous about drastically increasing government spending. I'm not being facetious, I'm 100% serious-- I wanted to know what your train of thought was. I didn't propose to build costly policies, I didn't propose an intolerance of failure or dissidence. I didn't even propose a drastic increase of government spending. I don't know HOW the idea that "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck" leads to eugenics and indentured servitude. I don't think a massive state that controls everyone and punishes the unsuccessful, as you suggest, is a natural outcome from "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck"... I think making sure people have access to affordable education, and free public schooling K-12, along with working roads and public safety... is the outcome. Please explain in more detail how you logic is working here.
Lol, what spin.
My premise is basically that the stool analogy is stupid. If you think hard work, luck, and infrastructure are equally important to the success of a nation, then you can only go one of two places:
1) Government can only control infrastructure. Therefore, the government can only go so far and after that it's just up to the people. More infrastructure beyond the standard of hard work and luck in our society won't help. Therefore, we're arguing about whether the US has its basic infrastructure.
2) Governement can/should influence all three. The government should build more infrastructure, then balance society by forcing it to become harder working and luckier. If you're gentle, you assume society will rise to the occasion with more infrastructure and fill it on their own. If not, then you talk about re-instituting the draft to force people to be harder workers.
I was being tongue-in-cheek about eugenics and indentured servitude. But the US has plenty of infrastructure and that's all Obama talks about. So to reiterate, if you believe the stool analogy, you might suggest that Obama start railing that Americans are lazy buggers who need to study and work harder.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 04:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:00 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 03:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 03:28 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 03:23 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 03:00 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 02:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 02:41 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 02:18 Budmandude wrote:
Infrastructure is constant for all people in the United States, therefor it has no impact on the success rate of businesses in the United States (which is what we are talking about by the way).
By that same logic, I shall assume that hard work has no impact on success because it's about as constant as infrastructure. So really, your parents' business success came from only one factor: luck. So MKP is successful only due to luck? Things like skill and ability are not factors? Surely this reply of yours is a joke, right? The context of the statement is that "assuming we control for / ignore hard work and pre-existing conditions and infrastructure" MKP's skill is a function of 3 legs: his hard work, the society / infrastructure that lets him do what he does, and his luck for being born in say, south korea instead of north korea, and with the raw materials, reflexes etc to become a progamer some day.
If we control for *hard work* and *infrastructure and pre-existing conditions*, then yes, MKP is successful cause he was lucky enough to be born with the raw attributes necessary to be a progamer, and Sc2 turned out to be a good game, and a million other factors that are necessary, which along with hard work and infrastructure made him who he is today. Like, did you even read the thread and discussion between badmandude, lightwip, and myself? How could you not know what we're talking about? Is this really a good-faith question you're asking, or are you intentionally misrepresenting budmandude, lightwip and myself? My mistake, I thought you were discussing something relevant. We are-- we're talking about different worldviews on how one comes to be successful, in the context of President Obama's recent speech in Roanoke. I'll refer you to this post (link) and the following discussion, should you choose to inform yourself before randomly making condescending (and subtly insulting) statements and asking bad-faith questions. You may as well be arguing over which is more important for breeding chickens - the pre-existing chickens (the infrastructure) or the willingness for the chickens to breed (the entrepreneurial activity). Both are necessary. Any discussion over which is more important in the grand scheme of things is nonsense. A fair point. All legs of the stool are necessary to hold it up. What if, say, one of the legs is broken or frayed, though? I don't think it's to unreasonable to say that perhaps we should shift our focus to an oft-neglected leg that has fallen into disrepair. I believe at the core of it, that was the President's message-- that the "infrastructure" leg of the "success" stool is neglected, and needs repair, and currently that's more important than the "luck" leg of the stool or the "hard work" leg of the stool. Without the "infrastructure" leg, the stool falls over. Certainly the infrastructure needs to be fixed and expanded upon. The real question is how to pay for it. Government used to be smaller yet we used to spend more on infrastructure as well. Size matters as much as priorities.
Oh, certainly. I mean, I'm not captain mcfamiliar with the federal budget, but I know that in the state I live in, the budget has ballooned while at the same time money for schools, roads, and libraries has dried up. In this case, it's like the wood that's normally used to make the infrastructure leg is instead being used to make freaking subsidies and payments for stuff that's not the infrastructure leg.
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On July 26 2012 04:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:00 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 03:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 03:28 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 03:23 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 03:00 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 02:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 26 2012 02:41 Lightwip wrote:On July 26 2012 02:18 Budmandude wrote:
Infrastructure is constant for all people in the United States, therefor it has no impact on the success rate of businesses in the United States (which is what we are talking about by the way).
By that same logic, I shall assume that hard work has no impact on success because it's about as constant as infrastructure. So really, your parents' business success came from only one factor: luck. So MKP is successful only due to luck? Things like skill and ability are not factors? Surely this reply of yours is a joke, right? The context of the statement is that "assuming we control for / ignore hard work and pre-existing conditions and infrastructure" MKP's skill is a function of 3 legs: his hard work, the society / infrastructure that lets him do what he does, and his luck for being born in say, south korea instead of north korea, and with the raw materials, reflexes etc to become a progamer some day.
If we control for *hard work* and *infrastructure and pre-existing conditions*, then yes, MKP is successful cause he was lucky enough to be born with the raw attributes necessary to be a progamer, and Sc2 turned out to be a good game, and a million other factors that are necessary, which along with hard work and infrastructure made him who he is today. Like, did you even read the thread and discussion between badmandude, lightwip, and myself? How could you not know what we're talking about? Is this really a good-faith question you're asking, or are you intentionally misrepresenting budmandude, lightwip and myself? My mistake, I thought you were discussing something relevant. We are-- we're talking about different worldviews on how one comes to be successful, in the context of President Obama's recent speech in Roanoke. I'll refer you to this post (link) and the following discussion, should you choose to inform yourself before randomly making condescending (and subtly insulting) statements and asking bad-faith questions. You may as well be arguing over which is more important for breeding chickens - the pre-existing chickens (the infrastructure) or the willingness for the chickens to breed (the entrepreneurial activity). Both are necessary. Any discussion over which is more important in the grand scheme of things is nonsense. A fair point. All legs of the stool are necessary to hold it up. What if, say, one of the legs is broken or frayed, though? I don't think it's to unreasonable to say that perhaps we should shift our focus to an oft-neglected leg that has fallen into disrepair. I believe at the core of it, that was the President's message-- that the "infrastructure" leg of the "success" stool is neglected, and needs repair, and currently that's more important than the "luck" leg of the stool or the "hard work" leg of the stool. Without the "infrastructure" leg, the stool falls over. Certainly the infrastructure needs to be fixed and expanded upon. The real question is how to pay for it. Government used to be smaller yet we used to spend more on infrastructure as well. Size matters as much as priorities.
We've already been over how "infrastructure" also includes education, police and fire, libraries, etc., and that more efficiency is to be highly sought after in government spending is not something anyone is going to disagree with.
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On July 26 2012 04:43 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:32 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:28 coverpunch wrote:On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please? I know you're being facetious but I'll address this anyways because I think we need to think seriously through the consequences of these policies that being tossed around. The question is not what it takes to be successful, we all know that. But the more important question is what do you do with all the people who can't or won't do the things to be successful? The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence. And that is what is so dangerous about drastically increasing government spending. I'm not being facetious, I'm 100% serious-- I wanted to know what your train of thought was. I didn't propose to build costly policies, I didn't propose an intolerance of failure or dissidence. I didn't even propose a drastic increase of government spending. I don't know HOW the idea that "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck" leads to eugenics and indentured servitude. I don't think a massive state that controls everyone and punishes the unsuccessful, as you suggest, is a natural outcome from "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck"... I think making sure people have access to affordable education, and free public schooling K-12, along with working roads and public safety... is the outcome. Please explain in more detail how you logic is working here. 1) Government can only control infrastructure. Therefore, the government can only go so far and after that it's just up to the people. More infrastructure beyond the standard of hard work and luck in our society won't help. Therefore, we're arguing about whether the US has its basic infrastructure.
Remember that "infrastructure" in this context necessarily includes education and social capital.
edit: and in this sense, the US most certainly does not have "basic infrastructure"
edit again: And I would be in favor of universal civil service, so I guess that's "indentured servitude." Maybe I'm a fascist
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 04:43 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 04:32 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:28 coverpunch wrote:On July 26 2012 04:09 Blazinghand wrote:On July 26 2012 04:07 coverpunch wrote:
The stool analogy is...stool. Let's stop please.
If you actually believe it then Obama's policies make even less sense. He should be calling at least as loudly for genetic engineering/eugenics and indentured servitude as he should be for more infrastructure. I don't view eugenics and indentured servitude as a natural extension of "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck". Could you explain this for me please? I know you're being facetious but I'll address this anyways because I think we need to think seriously through the consequences of these policies that being tossed around. The question is not what it takes to be successful, we all know that. But the more important question is what do you do with all the people who can't or won't do the things to be successful? The higher the costs of the policies you propose to build the infrastructure of a future society, the less you can tolerate failure or dissidence. And that is what is so dangerous about drastically increasing government spending. I'm not being facetious, I'm 100% serious-- I wanted to know what your train of thought was. I didn't propose to build costly policies, I didn't propose an intolerance of failure or dissidence. I didn't even propose a drastic increase of government spending. I don't know HOW the idea that "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck" leads to eugenics and indentured servitude. I don't think a massive state that controls everyone and punishes the unsuccessful, as you suggest, is a natural outcome from "being successful takes hard work, a society that allows for success by providing certain goods like education and roads, and a bit of luck"... I think making sure people have access to affordable education, and free public schooling K-12, along with working roads and public safety... is the outcome. Please explain in more detail how you logic is working here. Lol, what spin. My premise is basically that the stool analogy is stupid. If you think hard work, luck, and infrastructure are equally important to the success of a nation, then you can only go one of two places: 1) Government can only control infrastructure. Therefore, the government can only go so far and after that it's just up to the people. More infrastructure beyond the standard of hard work and luck in our society won't help. Therefore, we're arguing about whether the US has its basic infrastructure. 2) Governement can/should influence all three. The government should build more infrastructure, then balance society by forcing it to become harder working and luckier. If you're gentle, you assume society will rise to the occasion with more infrastructure and fill it on their own. If not, then you talk about re-instituting the draft to force people to be harder workers. I was being tongue-in-cheek about eugenics and indentured servitude. But the US has plenty of infrastructure and that's all Obama talks about. So to reiterate, if you believe the stool analogy, you might suggest that Obama start railing that Americans are lazy buggers who need to study and work harder.
...ok, so first off, the stool analogy doesn't say that all three legs are equally important-- just that they're all equally necessary. If any leg collapses (such as if you're born in a country with no roads and no running water or something, or you have bad luck and get a shitty illness as a young man, or if you're a lazy bum), even if the other two are sturdy you will not be able to start a cool successful business.
Secondly, the government can't literally make people luckier. The government only controls ONE of these legs. It is the infrastructure / public goods leg. This leg is seriously, seriously fucked up. "We need to pay more attention to it": that's what Obama is saying. You might personally disagree, but that doesn't mean the stool analogy is bad, it just means you think that leg is fine.
Having interacted at length with municipal and state governments for my work, I can assure you that our spending on education, roads, etc has fallen through the floor, and the infrastructure in this nation is (sometimes literally) crumbling. Ask anyone, any Republican OR Democrat, they'll tell you that education is fucked. It's true. We argue about how to fix it, or whether it's even fixable directly (I believe there's some talk of voucher programs, in which instead of the government running the schools, it pays private companies to do so since they'll probably do it better)-- but I'll be damned if the infrastructure in this country is good.
There's a series of potholes on southbound 101 and I went to the stupid state website and reported them, and they haven't filled them because there's no budget to do so. It fucked up my friends' wheels, cause a new one formed and he hadn't memorized the new pattern of potholes. Maybe the federal government is doing its stuff ok, but the CA state government is NOT. I don't know what the problem is. Maybe tax rates are too low, maybe unions are getting paid off too much, maybe pension liabilities are dragging us down, all I know is another library near me closed, the schools are crappier by the year, all the community colleges and state universities are charging hella more money and providing larger class sizes with less professor interactions, and the highways still aren't fixed, and people still claim infrastructure is "fine" and I just don't get what they're talking about at all.
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I don't know what kind of stools you sit on, but the three legs are supposed to be equal so yes, the stool analogy means all three factors are equally important.
As for the government making people luckier...that's up for debate. You'd be amazed at how much luckier you'd claim to be if I started beating you with a car antenna. You might even believe it at some point. You're kind of taking the luck of "I'm not being whipped by an antenna right now" for granted. See: Chinese economic statistics.
I also live in California so I'm sympathetic that the state government has failed so magnificently. This state has every possible blessing and it squandered it away and more. I'm just astounded that your best solution to that is MORE government.
If you talked about smarter or more efficient government, I'd be all in agreement. I don't mind the government spending more if it's doing it wisely. But I'm very scared because the federal government and certainly the California state govenrment over the last decade have shown very little reason to have faith they can ever do that.
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On July 26 2012 05:28 coverpunch wrote:
But I'm very scared because the federal government and certainly the California state govenrment over the last decade have shown very little reason to have faith they can ever do that.
Ah, here's the rub.
Why do you think that is?
If you say "it is because government is incompetent, as part of its essence," I will think this response facile. The government is an organization, and is fundamentally no different than other human organizations, which are clearly not universally incompetent. It must be some factor, beyond its mere governmentality, which causes this incompetence.
What is it?
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 26 2012 05:28 coverpunch wrote:
I don't know what kind of stools you sit on, but the three legs are supposed to be equal so yes, the stool analogy means all three factors are equally important.
As for the government making people luckier...that's up for debate. You'd be amazed at how much luckier you'd claim to be if I started beating you with a car antenna. You might even believe it at some point. You're kind of taking the luck of "I'm not being whipped by an antenna right now" for granted. See: Chinese economic statistics.
I also live in California so I'm sympathetic that the state government has failed so magnificently. This state has every possible blessing and it squandered it away and more. I'm just astounded that your best solution to that is MORE government.
If you talked about smarter or more efficient government, I'd be all in agreement. I don't mind the government spending more if it's doing it wisely. But I'm very scared because the federal government and certainly the California state govenrment over the last decade have shown very little reason to have faith they can ever do that.
Wait, I what? Why on earth do you think my solution to poor government is MORE government? I already told you, I'm not in favor of some massive expansion of government, and you keep on attributing this position to me even though I've never even talked about partisanship in this thread, I've only talked about a framework for understanding success. Shit, you don't even know my politics, who I vote for, or what I think, you're just assuming I'm some typical California big-government Republican. Well, I'll have you know that NOT all Californians are in favor of subsidies to companies that don't need them, or massive over-priced rail projects, or unnecessary restrictions on the production of food animals. Some people are legitimately in favor of streamlining and making government more efficient.
It seems like this conversation the whole time you've been randomly putting words in my mouth. Your argumentation is fundamentally dishonest OR you literally haven't been reading what I'm writing. I'm done here.
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On July 26 2012 05:47 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 05:28 coverpunch wrote:
But I'm very scared because the federal government and certainly the California state govenrment over the last decade have shown very little reason to have faith they can ever do that. Ah, here's the rub. Why do you think that is? If you say "it is because government is incompetent, as part of its essence," I will think this response facile. The government is an organization, and is fundamentally no different than other human organizations, which are clearly not universally incompetent. It must be some factor, beyond its mere governmentality, which causes this incompetence. What is it?
I don't think government is inherently incompetent or evil, although I do think Lord Acton's aphorism "power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely" is true.
The problem with big government is twofold. First, it involves the use of force, either implicitly or explicitly. I'm skeptical of government spending but if you want the government to spend, it must first collect money from me. It must take resources away from me. The US is sophisticated and mature enough to do this from a distance with bureaucrats from the IRS rather than hiring a couple thugs to beat me up, but it's force nonetheless.
Similarly, if you're offering "free K-12 education", that's also a measure of implicit force because it means people can't choose to quit school if they want. In many of the controversial big government scenarios, the ultimate answer comes down to "I know what's good for you better than you do, so you don't get to choose".
I think there is absolutely a role for the government in our society. It must protect our rights and provide courts of law to arbitrate disputes between citizens, for example. But how far does "protecting my rights" go in terms of taking away choices from me? I don't have a good answer to that, unfortunately. I just think we need to be very wary of increased spending and the growing influence of government to make choices for us. If it is not an unabashed good, if it can be abused in any way, the government shouldn't have that power.
In the context of 2012 politics, this is very difficult. Over the last decade, the government has given itself wide powers that it insists only the govenrment can take away, something it very rarely does.
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EPT
