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[Gentlefish]

AnCapistan is the homeland of AnarchoCapitalism yeah. I'm just shitposting, don't mind me. I can't add to this discussion much more than that.

[Lord Shonus]

So just to be clear - I don't think all of FDR's policies are bad. Just that there was a lot of stuff in that time period that impacts what we have today.  For instance, the SCOTUS case I referenced basically said that a farmer couldn't produce food to feed his own livestock, because it exceeded quotas so took away commerce from other producers.  That's basically saying "sorry you have to buy from someone else even though you could produce it yourself."

No. Wickard v. Filburn held that it is legal for Congress to regulate how much wheat a farmer is allowed to grow based on how much land that farmer has, in order to keep prices high enough and stable enough for farmers to survive (this was a response to Depression-era problems where price fluctuations caused tens of thousands of farmers to not be able to pay their mortgage and thus lose their land). Filburn could have used wheat he grew to feed his livestock, that's not the problem. He grew vastly more (239 bushels above the 223 bushels he should have grown, for a total of 462) than he was allowed to grow, then tried to use the "I didn't sell it, so you have no power here!" defense when he got fined. The Court found this defense to be lacking. Note that, due to the price controls, American farmers were being paid 116 cents a bushel when the global price was 40 cents.

[McTraveller]

Uhh... yes basically Wickard v Filburn was "any activity you do impacts commerce, so it all falls under the interstate commerce clause."  That decision was basically the thing that let the government intervene in every aspect of Americans' lives, since everything affects "commerce" by its definition.

It's scope was much more broad than "Congress can set production quotas."

[SalmonGod]

When arguments circle around like that where no matter what you do somebody's getting screwed, my thoughts in response inevitably turn to... well... maybe capitalism's just stupid and there's no satisfying answer to be found within it.

[Dunamisdeos]

All forms of government make sense on paper until you stop to consider that humans are involved in maintaining it. You can build that old argument of an AI sure, but we'll subvert or destroy it or create it with deliberate flaws.
 
Star Trek is a fantasy because it pretends we aren't really like this, we just need plenty and we'll shape up. Plenty just makes us worse, though.

[Egan_BW]

Of course, if that "people are inherently flawed and always will be" meme never started existing, we would have utopia by now.

[Dunamisdeos]

Of course, if that "people are inherently flawed and always will be" meme never started existing, we would have utopia by now.

Excuse me but that sounds like we need to build a time machine and go back to prevent the negative aspects of the human condition from existing and I see no way whatsoever that this can go wrong in context.

Also that's the best premise ever for a campy time travel film.

[Eschar]

Groundhog Day plus, I don't know, maybe Interstellar.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

All forms of government make sense on paper until you stop to consider that humans are involved in maintaining it. You can build that old argument of an AI sure, but we'll subvert or destroy it or create it with deliberate flaws.

Anybody ever notice the similarities between justifying keeping capitalism and justifying child abuse? "They're all like that, you're lucky you at least have me" is exactly the ethos behind the on paper argument.

I'm not accusing Dunamisdeos of anything, I just noticed this right now. Like, it's easy to go around saying humans will always subvert and destroy everything but frankly I don't fucking do that shit and neither do any emotionally healthy group of people. Hell, the biggest reason I've seen people subvert systems and destroy things are either in reaction to the horrors of capitalism or trying to survive within it. You pretty much have to cheat to get anything done under the eyes of the capitalist class.

Maybe it's time for is to accept that system subversion isn't some transcendent human nature and it's actually just a trait that the fucking capitalists have. Does it really beggar belief to say that material conditions and incentives affect people's behavior?

[Dunamisdeos]

I think that's a reasonable parallel regarding justifying unhealthy behavior, even if the child abuse aspect is a non-sequitur (?). I might have given the impression that I'm not in favor of changing things, but that's not the case. Our form of Capitalism does suck, and I am perfectly in favor of making a change away from what we have now.
 
My point wasn't that what we have now is the best it's going to be or that why change anything because whatever we have is imperfect, because that's a jackassed excuse used to justify indolence. There's no catch-all solution to humanity in the form of government. If and when we do change the way things are done, we'll still need to be vigilant against the same problems. By all means let's do our best to make things better than they are now, whether that falls under the name of capitalism or no is of zero concern to me.
 
Material conditions and incentives affect people's behavior, for sure. But if it was the impetus, we would stop once we had enough, or even an excess. We categorically do not. The people who manage to avoid this tendency are not the norm, and that's not because of our American culture or Capitalism. It's happened under every system and every creed, given enough time. Humans themselves are the common factor, not Capitalism itself.

I do agree that our current state of Capitalism both encourages and idolizes these aspects of ourselves.

[SalmonGod]

Anybody ever notice the similarities between justifying keeping capitalism and justifying child abuse? "They're all like that, you're lucky you at least have me" is exactly the ethos behind the on paper argument.

I've been making this observation for years.  I have soooooo much to say about it.  Abusive household dynamics parallel so cleanly with so many aspects of society.  Not just capitalism, but most hierarchical macro group dynamics in general.  I'm at the point where I think understanding the mechanics of abuse is a critical pillar of understanding how to respond to the modern crisis of society in general.  The psychology of loneliness is another closely related issue that I've been starting to see aspects of in everything, and I don't think it's any coincidence that victims suffer chronic loneliness as long as they stay in an abusive situation.

Philosophy Tube put out a video recently on abuse.  So my comment on that video is conveniently available to throw in here as kind of relevant input on the subject.

I just want to add that experiencing self-hatred and denial aren't necessary for a relationship to be abusive.  My only criticism of this video is I feel like it may have given the impression that this is central to what it means to be abused.  With respect to Olly's experiences, I don't want anyone to believe this.

Abuse functions through conditioning the victim to constantly question whether it's worth risking a fight.  And by fight I mean a sleepless night, a public humiliation, a dangerous confrontation with authorities, broken possessions, prolonged campaigns of passive aggressiveness, a suicide attempt, etc.  Extreme stuff.  Stuff that makes the normal, healthy moments of day to day life seem petty by comparison.  As Olly said, an abuser will use your virtues against you, but also your responsibilities.  You have to function at work and school and so on.  No responsible person can be having such fights all the time.

So you suppress the parts of yourself that risk conflict.  There's a million petty things you go through in a day that could trigger a fight with an abuser, and they will make it known that if you disregard them your lives will grind to a halt even to the death of you both if that's what it takes.  Even if you know it's abuse and you don't blame yourself and you love yourself, it still remains that the only way to co-exist with an abuser while maintaining a functioning life wherein you can hold down jobs, stay out of trouble with authorities, etc is to bend your every thought and habit around minimizing the risk of conflict, and to suppress whatever parts of yourself get in the way of that.  This carries on long enough, you lose those parts of yourself.  They wither and die.  You lose your individual personhood.  You forget how to be anything but the caretaker of your abuser's temperament.  Your psychological being is devoured and subsumed into the abuser's. 

That is the essence of abuse, and no amount of savvy or strength of will prevents the end result.  The only thing that prevents it is leaving.

With some adjustment of details where appropriate, think about this in terms of class relations...

And I can't take credit for it.  It was a talk by Derrick Jensen called The Other Side of Darkness which I listened to about 11 years ago that set me on this thought-path.  You can look it up easily on youtube.  Derrick Jensen is a militant anarcho-primitivist.  Pretty extreme.  I definitely don't agree with everything he says, and he can be very cooky and meandering.  But he's also a very soulful individual and if you're willing to take 2.5 hours to give it a listen, there are some moments of intense insight worth listening to in there.  He grew up in an abusive environment and drawing comparisons to that is a foundation for much of his work.

Material conditions and incentives affect people's behavior, for sure. But if it was the impetus, we would stop once we had enough, or even an excess. We categorically do not. The people who manage to avoid this tendency are not the norm, and that's not because of our American culture or Capitalism. It's happened under every system and every creed, given enough time. Humans themselves are the common factor, not Capitalism itself.

I disagree strongly with this.  I believe this perception is a product of confirmation bias that isn't anyone's fault, but it's a natural product of social awareness within the system itself.  Because the people who do stop when they have enough aren't highly visible people.  It's mostly people who are "successful" in the form of amassing large amounts of wealth and power who attain visibility to the culture at large.  And of all the people who do not attain large amounts of wealth and power, how many of them are visible to you or the culture at large?  How can you possibly know how many people are out there who do consciously reach a point of being content that they have enough, and deliberately cease amassing wealth and power?  Or is it just a common assumption that we take for granted so much we don't even realize we're making an assumption that everyone who isn't wealthy and powerful just failed to get there?

[nenjin]

My general take is: if we want to make it as a species, people need to start living with less. Not more. Until we use our intellect and enlightenment to instill it as a species value to conserve more than we consume, we're eventually going to end up eating ourselves to stay alive.

[WealthyRadish]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Y'know, while I'm constantly looking at where we are currently and what roads we might end up finding ourselves going down (the present ones are... fraught), I've never actually gave all that much thought into an actual desirable goal. Figured that this would be a good place to ask for some nice reading material on the subject. Already had one person I know recommend Plato's Republic, and unfortunately I can't recall the recommendation of another who holds a different perspective than the first (their perspective was self-described as "anarcho-capitalist" but on further asking seems to have just been a term they pulled up that was somewhat related; the book, and most of their philosophy, has pretty much nothing to do with that label and was misapplied. Unless defining a state as any entity of people or peoples with sufficient power to secure their own sovereignty is anarcho-capitalist or something).

While I imagine the perspective here leans rather to the left, it'll be a nice counter-weight to some other people I plan on asking whose perspectives lean in other directions.

Literature, preferably. While I appreciate that there are some well-made Youtube videos and such on the subject, I'd rather have something more... meaty.

The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin and Progress and Poverty by Henry George would be a couple tentative recommendations from my recent reading as highly idealistic books that suggest something of an "model society." I found both these works refreshing in their optimism, and they influenced my own political beliefs substantially (at least in principle if not in specifics). While I have major criticisms of both, the flaws should be apparent to any reader and provide value as an opportunity for considering new topics critically, if nothing else.

Edit:

Spoiler: Less vague elaborations as I remember more from these books in particular (click to show/hide)

I remember Conquest in several ways giving voice to my personal revolt against the excessive prevalence of "enlightened self-interest" in much modern thinking. Perhaps the ideas are too pie-in-the-sky, but I think the book is highly worthwhile in at least offering an opportunity to consider social organization along other lines through other qualities intrinsic in human experience and relations. The work also offered a novel if blunt solution to the problem of determining what the "just" distribution of the social product among factors of production is, which ended up influencing in particular my thinking on intellectual property and scientific progress.

The main contribution I recall from Progress was at least a crystallization of the truism that essentially all evil in our hierarchical organizations manifests itself as some form of rent-seeking. George's panacea goes too far in its implications (or maybe doesn't go far enough, I'm not actually sure) but I think it does offer more of a practical mode of thinking that can be applied in modern society to some effect, and not necessarily just regarding policy. It's influenced the way I've reflected on my own experiences and motivations when considering questions of material security, anyway.

[SalmonGod]

I remember Conquest in several ways giving voice to my personal revolt against the excessive prevalence of "enlightened self-interest" in much modern thinking.

The way I see "enlightened self-interest" used in modern discourse is usually pretty stupid.  Like the terminology suggests to me that it would be about framing something as benefiting self-interest that doesn't immediately appear to be about self-interest.  But instead it's used these days to frame the idea that everyone acting in naked self-interest is somehow good for society with really weak-ass arguments.  Throwing the term enlightened on top of it when you're just talking about self-interest in plain form is just hollow embellishment.

Here's some enlightened self-interest for you.  If everyone looks out for themselves, they've got one person looking out for them.  If everyone looks out for everyone else, they've got a lot of people looking out for them.  Enlightened self-interest is mutual aid.

[wierd]

Well...  This is worrisome. ..

https://edition-m.cnn.com/2019/08/02/politics/nuclear-treaty-inf-us-withdraws-russia/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fm.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F359098