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Author Topic: Let's talk Capitalism.  (Read 26966 times)

Lagslayer

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #180 on: September 24, 2013, 08:37:27 am »

Because people are stupid and have no idea what either of these terms actually mean?
That could be said of both sides. Nobody in this thread can seem to agree on what anything actually means.

Tack

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #181 on: September 24, 2013, 09:10:15 am »

Currently it's a debate between communism, capitalism, socialism, welfare capitalism and post-industrial faschism.

I guess people are just narrowing it down to the best ideas. Give it time.
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alexandertnt

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #182 on: September 24, 2013, 09:20:00 am »

Here is a septic tank:



Thats a pretty damn small septic tank. Our house actually has a septic tank, its a relatively large concrete structure embedded into the ground. And, as 10ebbor10 said, you do have to be careful with what you put down the drain.

We also get to experience the glory of having tank water. In the Australian outback. Where it rains one every full moon several full moons and the humidity is next to zero.


I still don't understand why the suggestion of anything besides capitalism is automatically named communism, or even just criticizing capitalism results in the discussion being labeled communism vs capitalism, even if there's been zero mention of communism until that label is applied...

To be fair, no one (as far as I am aware) has resorted to calling anyone communists or anything like that. Which is much better than how these economic arguments usually go down on the internet.
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Tack

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #183 on: September 24, 2013, 09:41:16 am »

Well with the way the world is heading, the 99% might be happier with communism.
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Angle

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #184 on: September 24, 2013, 11:05:07 am »

Neh. What we need is a decentralized system optimized for everyone's benefit, instead of just the wealthy and powerful. Setting it up is gonna be a real pain, though. It'll need to be built from the ground up, mostly independent of existing structures.
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10ebbor10

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #185 on: September 24, 2013, 11:29:11 am »

Well back to the discussion. And more organized than before. Have some discussion topics.

Replacing Money
     -Digitalized Currency (Perfect control, direct statistics, no non electronic fraud)
     -Money based by Energy (Energy certificates, stuff like that)
     -Money based on Emissions (Highly doubt it'll work, as there are lot's of these)
     -Money based on Labour
     -Multiple certificate systems
     -Privatize the money system
The Economy
     -Capitalism
     -Increased regulation
     -State led economy
     -Democratic economy (Every company is led by a parliament of it's workers, maybe in corporation with it's CEO)
     -Cyberocracy  (A digitalized state led economy)
     -Technocracy   (An economy led by experts, engineers and other knowledgable guys)
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Gervassen

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #186 on: September 24, 2013, 11:34:39 am »

Actually, industrial farming is limited by fertilizer production. Current production is enough though but that's resource distribution.

Yeah, but this thread has destroyed any previous limits to the production of fertiliser, methinks.
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Helgoland

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #187 on: September 24, 2013, 02:46:17 pm »

A good chunk of the discussion has been this, but you're definitely overlooking some stuff.  I've intentionally avoided exactly what you're describing, for example by talking about the core nature of present day work, and much of the discussion regarding scarcity or automation has not been about far-off future hypotheticals or utopia visions.  It's been about how capitalism relates to the issues of scarcity and automation right now, and the turmoil we are absolutely going to face as the system fails to cope with those issues as they progress in the very near future.
Yeah, but there hasn't been much discussion about it... Just people stating their views repeatedly and hoping to get somewhere. Kind of like bashing two rocks together in the hope of creating an iPhone, methinks ;)
One thing, though: Ebbor, would you lay out your (non-)Utopia? You appear to have the most engineer-like way of thinking of the people in this thread, and a (sort of) technocratic view would be refreshing.
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LordBucket

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #188 on: September 24, 2013, 03:21:10 pm »

I still don't understand why the suggestion of anything besides capitalism is automatically named communism, or even just criticizing capitalism results in the discussion being labeled communism vs capitalism, even if there's been zero mention of communism until that label is applied...

A lot of people are stuck in a confrontational "X vs Y" binary mindset.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_opposition

Two political parties, "you're either with us or against us," "better red than dead," "east vs west," "it's us against the whole world, baby,' etc. Even when there are more than two choices, many people are by habit accustomed to thinking in twos, associated themselves personally with one choice and perceiving the other as the enemy.



Thats a pretty damn small septic tank. Our house actually has a septic tank, its a relatively large concrete structure embedded into the ground.

I'm pretty sure your "relatively large concrete structure" is quite a few orders of magnitude smaller than a city-wide underground labyrinth of pipes.

Quote
you do have to be careful with what you put down the drain.

And is (being careful what you put down the drain * the number of people in your city) more or less effort than having dedicated city-wide crews maintaining an entire worth of underground pipes, pumping stations and purification centers?



What we need is a decentralized system optimized for everyone's
benefit, instead of just the wealthy and powerful.

Remove the "rich vs poor" dichotomy and I think you'll find that's largely what I've been suggesting. Our current system promotes wage slavery. If there's no work to be done, it seems silly to me to do work anyway. But work is necessary in our system, and there are large numbers of people who have work and jobs heavily tied up into their sense of self worth. Any time you introduce a labor saving device or method, it puts people out of work and suddenly they can't eat. Consequently there's a great deal of incentive to create work, and keep people working even if it's not required or useful at all.

That's exactly what I'm seeking to overcome. The "rich" in your dichotomy are people who have largely escaped that, and the "poor" are those who haven't, and are stuck needing to work jobs that are often pointless and inefficient in order to survive.


To set aside from the water treatment example, look at a graduated vs flat tax. A flat tax chosen at whatever is the required percentage to generate the same amount of revenue would generate the same amount of revenue. And it would be so much simpler that it would immediately eliminate countless hours of accounting work from most of  everyone's lives, and eliminate the work requirements for several tens of thousands of tax preparers and accountants.   The net result would be the same, for vastly less workload.

If you take that kind of a mindset and apply it, I'm confident that any of you could think of labor saving changes to  a number of industries that could be made with current technology. SalmonGod has said that after 7 years working at his job he still feels it's completely pointless, and somebody linked an article on the bullshit jobs phenomenon. Come up with your own examples if you don't like mine. I'm sure you can. But that kind of thinking puts people out of work. The current system encourages keeping everyone working whether or not it's useful for them to work, and discourages efficiency and progress.

If one politician says "I can create 10,000 jobs" and another says "I can eliminate 10,000 jobs" which of the two do you think will be elected? But shouldn't eliminating jobs be the preferable goal? Not in our current system.

Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #189 on: September 24, 2013, 03:29:20 pm »

What would people do with their spare time?
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10ebbor10

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #190 on: September 24, 2013, 03:31:28 pm »

Thats a pretty damn small septic tank. Our house actually has a septic tank, its a relatively large concrete structure embedded into the ground.
I'm pretty sure your "relatively large concrete structure" is quite a few orders of magnitude smaller than a city-wide underground labyrinth of pipes.
I'd like to see you try to fit several hundred of those in your average apartment building, yes.

Quote
you do have to be careful with what you put down the drain.
And is (being careful what you put down the drain * the number of people in your city) more or less effort than having dedicated city-wide crews maintaining an entire worth of underground pipes, pumping stations and purification centers?
[/quote]
The drainage system needs a good 20 m²-40m² of properly drained soil to dump the majority of the water into. I'd like to see you try that in a concrete city.
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lemon10

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #191 on: September 24, 2013, 03:35:04 pm »

The correctness of that single example is pretty irrelevant to his greater point.

Unless you are contesting the veracity of the base statement (that there are ways to significantly reduce work while keeping output flat), then the argument of over what exactly the most effective means of sewage are is pointless.
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scrdest

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #192 on: September 24, 2013, 03:38:25 pm »

Well, if a politician says he will create 10 000 jobs, what he usually means is that he will hire 10 000 of his friends and family members to do a completely pointless job for a handsome salary. </cynicism>

But in the short run, hiring X people to do a completely unproductive job is beneficial, since people who wouldn't have money suddenly get it and can spend it on stuff, but mind you, short run. And most clerical jobs are actually counter-productive, since they decrease the efficency of work other people do.
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10ebbor10

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #193 on: September 24, 2013, 03:44:47 pm »

Do I have too? Well, here have an compilation of ideas that can probably be horribly subverted, corrupted or are probably unworkable to begin with. Some might note that I actually poked holes in a few of those in some threads past. You'll notice I prefer to be on that side of the argument.

Firstly, economics is the study of the distribution of scarce resources. In order to do this, we need to know both demand, and supply. This is easy to simulate in a micro-economic system, but once you go to larger systems, the water soon becomes troubled. In order to obtain a sufficient amount of information, and be able to process it fast enough, a complete digitalization of the entire economy has to occur. A digital currency will go a long way, but optimally you have a single connected network spread through every factory and productive installation. (You can allow small shop's and goods producers to fall through the mazes, as you'll get that info anyway, thanks to sales records from the digitalized currency). All information is handled in bulk, and thanks to state of the art data mining you get a very clear view of the economy.

The money can be a fiat currency, or backed by whatever you like. It doesn't matter much, as this will be a primarily government controlled economy, which will utilize it. Thanks to a guaranteed userbase, perfect control of where the money is, and some other tricks, we can safeguard a stable currency. (Assuming nobody is an idiot and cracks the system). Depending on your preferences, you can give everyone a base allowance, set allowance based on work, or combine both.

Now, in order to ensure an optimally managed economy, I'd like to put the experts on the matter into the system. Preferably, using large groups of them at once, and using groups of flexible size. If you get only 1 person on each matter at hand, you'll have them doing stupid things to leave a mark, and impress people to be reelected. Hence why the position would not have a set limit, it'll last till they step down, or they get a motion of distrust. This stimulates people to play safe; not risky.
Electing can be done in a variety of ways.
        1) A series of exams and requirements to judge everyone, and choose the best candidate.
        2) A performance based system.
        3) A democratic economy.  Each factory is divived in groups of workers, which sent a representative to a parliament, which sends a representative to  a larger parliament, until you reach the top.
        4) Something else

This is likely to result in a fairly large government, but it should be a capable one. Slow and steady is the idea.

Note: This is a functional and good system, but like everything else, only works if someone games it.


The correctness of that single example is pretty irrelevant to his greater point.

Unless you are contesting the veracity of the base statement (that there are ways to significantly reduce work while keeping output flat), then the argument of over what exactly the most effective means of sewage are is pointless.
I'm contesting the idea that decentralization is the way forward. You'll see that I have been arguing against most of his other arguments for decentralization too.

Elimination of paper pushing and other useless work, just for the existence of having work is something I can get behind though.
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Helgoland

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Re: Let's talk Capitalism.
« Reply #194 on: September 24, 2013, 04:14:16 pm »

An example where decentralization is being tried and will (probably) fail: The German electricity supply. Right now decentralization's the bee's knees, the wasp's ass, the entire reproductive system of any insect species you'd care to name. There's villages trying to become independent from the general electricity supply, huge amount of subsidies for solar panels (leading to farmers building 'barns', basically roofs with four legs, solely for the purpose of getting those subsidies), and general back-patting of the "We're better than other nations for doing the right thing"-type. It's Germany we're talking about, after all ;)
Now, the other thing Germany is known for is its industry. And for all this talk about self-sufficiency and the decentralized energy infrastructure of tomorrow that will break the backs of large energy corporations like RWE or E.on, nobody, or at least nobody who is present in public discourse, seems to think about the large amounts of electricity necessary to supply factories or cities with high population densities.

Meanwhile, Desertec is dying a slow death, and offshore wind energy is failing due to incompetency. You may have noticed that making wind is the only thing Germany's real good at: The truth is, wind energy is the only source of renewable energy that's viable in Germany, and eco-conscious Germans are starting to protest on-shore wind energy because it's supposed to ruin the environment.
Actually, they're just concerned with keeping the nice view.

TL;DR: Centralized industry needs centralized power supply, and Germans are a strange people.
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Arguably he's already a progressive, just one in the style of an enlightened Kaiser.
I'm going to do the smart thing here and disengage. This isn't a hill I paticularly care to die on.
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