Global Warming, Ecology & Socialism (Split from Civ4)

[AJ11]

How would you know where I'm from? Why are you blaming me for making prostitutes? How come you aren't answering the point and instead brushing it off as "typical of your kind"?

The world has many mysterious questions...

Where you are from is irrelevant. Humanity's worst traits do not manifest in just one area, but globally everywhere.
Your stated beliefs ensure that I blame you. I read your posts.
You didn't have a point, just childish graphics and sarcastic one liners masquerading as "debate".
You are typical of your kind. I read your posts.

 

[Linkman226]

Where you are from is irrelevant. Humanity's worst traits do not manifest in just one area, but globally everywhere.

I see. So when you said:

I look forward to kicking your ivory tower arse about how your kind made prostitutes out of our women, you <<self-censored swearwords>>.

you were referring to humankind? Which would include you.......

Your stated beliefs ensure that I blame you. I read your posts.

Wait what? Eco-socialists are setting up whorehouses in the country of your origin? Where the hell are you from?

You didn't have a point, just childish graphics and sarcastic one liners masquerading as "debate".

Indeed, quite truly childish. In the sense that they have children. Working. In terrible conditions. Something that only ended with what you call a nosy state. Again, if you don't like the nosy state, are you ok with child labor?

You are typical of your kind. I read your posts.

And yet you insist on claiming I somehow support biofuels. I, for one, think you were just taking potshots at greens/ lefties without actually caring what we stand for, hoping the reader was as ignorant as you were and therefore would be convinced that lefties want little children in Africa to starve to death, or at the very least treat this as an "unintended consequence.

 

[AJ11]

I see. So when you said:



you were referring to humankind? Which would include you.......



Wait what? Eco-socialists are setting up whorehouses in the country of your origin? Where the hell are you from?



Indeed, quite truly childish. In the sense that they have children. Working. In terrible conditions. Something that only ended with what you call a nosy state. Again, if you don't like the nosy state, are you ok with child labor?



And yet you insist on claiming I somehow support biofuels. I, for one, think you were just taking potshots at greens/ lefties without actually caring what we stand for, hoping the reader was as ignorant as you were and therefore would be convinced that lefties want little children in Africa to starve to death, or at the very least treat this as an "unintended consequence.

I rest my case. Your continued taunting in the face of something that is quite obviously a real issue shows your lack of what Shakespeare calls "the milk of human kindness" far more accurately and graphically than I ever can in a million words. A truly compassionate person would have acted differently.

 

[Linkman226]

About what? What is a real issue? Global warming is, I know that. What do YOU happen to be referring to?

 

[plasmacannon]

Then why ARE there poor people still extant in the system? By your logic they should have been able to and "eager to" pull themselves up.
...
And once more you ignore the issues I brought up in the quote.

There are some people that prefer a slower lifestyle, so, they get what they want.
There are some people that compete in the workforce, and are out performed by others who were, more skilled, better educated, or some cases just lucky.
There who compete who do rise to the occasion and excel at a career.
There are some people that excel and have some luck and succeed incredible well. Such as the young actors chosen for the Harry Potter movies. Good talent, but, also, some luck that they "look" the part and had the right personality for the role and became, Very successful.
I have noticed that, when, life gets me down, I look back to those days, when, I was very poor, but, worked on commission and made myself more sucessful. There was some competition, but, those days did me more good than other, slower, less attentive jobs. I would recommend that to anyone. I saved up for that house I rented, while, working in Retail. Anyone, that has worked there, knows it's not a gold mine. LOL. I bought a 2nd one with Owner financing. There are ways out of poverty, one just has to have the ambition to succeed and to not let their failures get them down. Rise to the Occasion! Have a sence of Urgentcy! Be Extraordinary!
(ok, I ripped that last one off Doctor Who, but, you get the idea)
Here's another, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" - Monty Python's Life of Brian.

By the way, man made Global Warming factors, such as CO2 can he taken care of. You just haven't invented it yet.
So, when, you finish your engineering degree or Chemistry degree work on it, take out a loan, design a prototype and sell it to a major company to manufacture it and destribute it all around the world. You can then, do with your wealth as you see fit, such as, donate to charities for the poor or whatever. Then, everyone will be happy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How would you know where I'm from? Why are you blaming me for making prostitutes? How come you aren't answering the point and instead brushing it off as "typical of your kind"?

The world has many mysterious questions...

Like why people would post irrelevant pictures to the debate matter.

Very mysterious.

 

[anti_strunt]

"Pure capitalism" will never work because there is always a profit incentive to disrupting the market in one's own favour!

 

[anti_strunt]

Decent economists can poke so many holes in the organizational capabilities and incentive structure of governing bodies that it's laughable. The sheer volume of things being regulated has never been demonstrated as something a government can handle. Are there more people here, or in late Soviet Russia?

The government is a firm too, and obeys the same potentials and limitations. Planned states are terrible; they functionally have no market discipline whatsoever.

As for capitalism, show me a state that actually embraces it rather than undermines it. USA is about as capitalist as it is socialist using this country as a model for the failings of capitalism is a joke because it doesn't run that way.

Decent economists can (and frequently do) poke plenty of holes in the incentive structure of a stock corporation, but for the most part the market doesn't seem to be in a rush to embrace any alternatives...

The government is obviously a organisation, but to what end, exactly? A corporation is formed to maximize the profits of the stockholders. Whether you think this is good or bad or whether it always works out that way (management can often have an indirect incentive to maximize other variables): in theory the purpose of the corporation is extremely clear. What exactly is the purpose of a government?

To ensure the general welfare of the citizenry? To protect it from oppression by other governments? To exercise a monopoly on force? To mediate conflicts between citizens? To maximize profits of... what? On their citizens' wealth? Keep a balanced budget? Safeguard a perfectly functioning free market from being tampered with? To functionally have as much market discipline as possible?

A corporation can fail at everything; add nothing to some arbitrary measure of the collective worth of humanity except for making a profit, and it will be a successful corporation. What would you consider the measure of a successful government?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A corporation can fail at everything; add nothing to some arbitrary measure of the collective worth of humanity except for making a profit, and it will be a successful corporation.

I don't think this is true in practice. If corporation behavior didn't serve some use to its customers, it wouldn't be successful. If it's beating out its competition at providing something people value, it can't be total fail.

What would you consider the measure of a successful government?

Excellent question. Too bad nobody in history has ever answered it perfectly. I'm not sure there is a perfect answer. There are, of course, some basics:

1. Military protection of citizens (you don't have much overall success when dead)
2. Protection of property rights (incentive to do anything beyond basic survival is minimal when you can't reliably retain assets)
3. Law enforcement ----> I can't picture this being handled well privately in the general sense. Maybe for things beyond basics, but you really need a reasonable gov't presence to prevent strong organized crime and other crime problems.
4. Design survivability ---> there have been great leaders who led golden ages in regions of the world. Then they die or fall apart. Gov't needs to be sustainable. As nobody has proven they can come up with a 100% sustainable gov't yet, you just go by how many years a regime lasts :/.
5. Overall wealth ----> you will always, always, always have rich and poor stratifications until people can survive with 0 effort at all indefinitely. That kind of tech would be cute, but it isn't around yet. What you want, then is a setup where people who actually perform well are rewarded for it.

Beyond that, I don't know. Is it better to regulate stock markets? Invade to secure resources? Regulate crap like collegiate athletics? Probably not. Gov't clearly oversteps the bounds of what any organization can possibly execute efficiently. I'm not sure it needs to do very much itself aside from military/legal security, with an actual effective incentive system.

The problem is, votes were SUPPOSED to be a decent incentive system. They aren't though, because they aren't sacred and they are farmed without repercussion to the failures of the methods to bring them in. A lot of times they're won by exploiting ignorance that is never corrected. What's the better alternative though, really? We don't have anybody who lives 6000 years in reality.

 

[anti_strunt]

I don't think this is true in practice. If corporation behavior didn't serve some use to its customers, it wouldn't be successful. If it's beating out its competition at providing something people value, it can't be total fail.

Usually the case in practice, but not theoretically necessarily.

I wasn't trying to make a point beyond what I wrote: judging the success of a corporation is easy, judging the success of a government is hard. Comparisons on management between the two are easily made and often popular, but they shouldn't be done too hastily.

EDIT: and it's worth remembering that a corporation does not interact with the rest of society solely through the immediate costumer relationship: it can potentially have a detrimental impact on the free market, the political system, the environment, society and culture etcetera, while still providing sufficient benefit to its direct costumers to remain profitable.

Excellent question. Too bad nobody in history has ever answered it perfectly. I'm not sure there is a perfect answer. There are, of course, some basics:

1. Military protection of citizens (you don't have much overall success when dead)
2. Protection of property rights (incentive to do anything beyond basic survival is minimal when you can't reliably retain assets)
3. Law enforcement ----> I can't picture this being handled well privately in the general sense. Maybe for things beyond basics, but you really need a reasonable gov't presence to prevent strong organized crime and other crime problems.
4. Design survivability ---> there have been great leaders who led golden ages in regions of the world. Then they die or fall apart. Gov't needs to be sustainable. As nobody has proven they can come up with a 100% sustainable gov't yet, you just go by how many years a regime lasts :/.
5. Overall wealth ----> you will always, always, always have rich and poor stratifications until people can survive with 0 effort at all indefinitely. That kind of tech would be cute, but it isn't around yet. What you want, then is a setup where people who actually perform well are rewarded for it.

Beyond that, I don't know. Is it better to regulate stock markets? Invade to secure resources? Regulate crap like collegiate athletics? Probably not. Gov't clearly oversteps the bounds of what any organization can possibly execute efficiently. I'm not sure it needs to do very much itself aside from military/legal security, with an actual effective incentive system.

The problem is, votes were SUPPOSED to be a decent incentive system. They aren't though, because they aren't sacred and they are farmed without repercussion to the failures of the methods to bring them in. A lot of times they're won by exploiting ignorance that is never corrected. What's the better alternative though, really? We don't have anybody who lives 6000 years in reality.

Time is running short, so I'll only say this: one very pressing problem is that fact that for every bad law being passed someone, somewhere will probably profit; if not in terms of capital then in terms of political or institutional power, which are equally subject to laws of economics. A bad politician is not just stupid (or else he would be quickly ousted): he is looking for an angle and a way to corrupt the system for personal gain. This is the problem of the profit incentive to disrupting the free market I mentioned earlier.

More tomorrow, I hope...
(Damn non-responsive server, took half an hour to get that posted and now it's late anyway...)

 

[vranasm]

how long it is from the fall of Berlin wall? 20 years?
It's so scary to see how short memory people have.

Ok I lived in "socialism", I watched how it worked here in Czech republic around 85-89.

I will give you some examples, so you know how it works:

1) There was lack of toilet paper, people regularly used newspaper to clean their .

2) If you wanted some magazines (ABC, Ctyrlistek) there was limited supply, so getting subscription was only for few privileged.

3) You're used to just take the phone call and have in few days people like plumber, all kinds of repairer, even car repair... forget it. Everywhere it was about "connections", who didn't had them - bad luck.
Car repairs were regularly stealing your parts of car switching it with some other older parts so the people working in the workshop had better parts for their cars. people regularly had to stand behind someone else to watch what he is doing to not get robbed!

4) Every bricklayer was used to steal material for their own buisiness

5) even if we lacked toilet paper and magazines, we had surplus of tractor parts. For example here in Brno is manufacturer called "Zetor" (I bet some people would know it).
Around that factory there was hundreds of tyres, cabs and some other parts who weren't converted into running tractors, due to bad planning and no one wanting them.
That's something that capitalism and primitive supply->demand->supply solved.

6) wanted to get good food (especially meat) -> you should surely know good butcher

7) wanted bananas or orange? well they were available only few times per year and always big queue involved.

8) corruption, even bigger then we have now. Wanted to get good treatment in hospital, prepare big money. For example it is claimed that if you wanted good treatment with "gall bladder", you had to offer around 5000 Kcs, while income was around 1200 Kcs monthly.
Other thing being that the treatment itself was ~20 years behind the USA

9) At some products was so limited supply that there were waiting lists. For example cars, TV's, radio's etc.

10) It was so bad we had to "invent" other form of currency called "bony" that were used in some special markets. There you could buy good stuff from west. Bony was only for the priviliged and made big black market here.

Socialism as form of government will run for awhile just from the core built by capitalism, once it eats all those resources it just collapses. Exactly as you saw in 1989.
The collapse was not political, it was pure economics. Russia (USSR) had to make really big changes in economy, free people from chains a bit and then it just naturally collapsed and eventually whole Soviet block.

That's why we was teched in the school that people have to be "re-educated" to work in the system to their best even if the return was low.
The system in itself doesn't promote people working to their max and just collapses.

Planned economy doesn't work, because it ignores supply-demand balance.
You can see it up to day in health service and most importantly as for now school service.
For example last 6 years there is big influx of new born children in CR. from 1995 up to 2007 there was lack of children and the government SLOWLY reduced the number of preschool. Now it seems that we lack capacity everywhere, but the problem is that politicians NOW start to TALK about needing bigger capacity.
With their typical speed we will get bigger capacity in 3-5 years... then we will realize we lack the children (of course because the BOOM is NOW!)...

If the preschool wasn't regulated by government I am sure this sort of thing would be solved by 1 year with typical supply-demand! But no... the government knows "better".

After all those years I came to the conclusion that the best form of government is the one which influences daily living the least!

 

[karadoc]

Dysfunctional capitalist societies exist too.

 

[AJ11]

how long it is from the fall of Berlin wall? 20 years?
It's so scary to see how short memory people have.

<SNIP> for brevity.

I completely agree, Vranasm.

However, you have to realise that many of the neo-socialists and neo-communists are little more than children themselves. Take a look at the anti-capitalist protesters that you see on TV every year or so. They are all little more than 20 themselves, many even less. Most of them had never lived with the USSR. Yet, in the manner of children everywhere, they think they know everything.

Warning! Long!

Spoiler :

It has been said (by Churchill, I believe), "If you are not a liberal when you are 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are 40, you have no brains."

"Liberal", in today's terms, means hard left socialist or communist. Let's call them neo-liberals for short, since calling them "pseudo-bleeding heart PC liberotards" is a bit long.

These neo-liberals think they are being kind and compassionate, and they do not realise that their so-called "kindness" and "compassion" cause more death and suffering than the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. At least the Khmer Rouge only operated in Cambodia not everwhere on the planet, but I digress. One of the things that has been noted time and again where these neo-liberals are concerned is a funny psychological dichotomy at play where the neo-liberals are concerned.

You see, to a man, these neo-liberals get really... pissy (for lack of a better word)... when people do not agree with them. They get angry, agitated, and turn violent in short order. You can see them on TV, shouting obscenities, beating people, making rude gestures, throwing rocks, petrol bombs, etc., attacking police, breaking store windows, destroying cars, and worse. They like to call people names and are generally downright rude and arrogant. Why is this? Aren't they supposed to be the kind and fluffy people, concerned with the world?

It is fairly simple, according to some psychologists. In painting themselves as the good guys, the compassionate ones, they build an image of themselves as the paragons of goodness. As a result, anyone opposing them is automatically evil and depraved. They move straight into "avenger" mode and righteously go out to smite the infidels. It does not matter that everything that they believe in is an illusion, they believe themselves to be right. It is a holy crusade they are embarking on, and boring things truth, facts and logic will not sway them from their path.

Conservatives, people who actually went through hardship to build the countries these neo-liberals live in, who gave them the freedoms and plenty to come up with their nonsense, tend to be practical people. They are the ones who keep things going, who like the status quo that they built. They are the ones who become automatic targets for the neo-liberals. "Conservative" or "neocon" are epithets where the neo-liberals are concerned.

Here in Australia, the neo-liberal rhetoric has gotten to such a point that people who spent their own money and their own time to go to Canberra to protest the stupidities of the neo-liberal government is branded by that government as of "no consequence". That is right. The government is saying that its own citizens are of no consequence. In another interview, the same people were branded as "incontinent", a slur on them by implying that they are nothing but old folks who are behind the times. Nevermind that those same now old people BUILT the nation. That is how sick and depraved neo-liberals are, that a government of these people would stoop to ridiculing the very people they were elected to represent and govern, and who feels that old people are a waste of their time and energy (this is from another comment made by our communist prime minister).

Beware the neo-liberal. They are more dangerous than rabid dogs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Dysfunctional capitalist societies exist too.

Where are the actual capitalist societies?

 

[karadoc]

Where are the actual capitalist societies?

I don't know. Where are the actual socialist societies?

Where and what societies are, or whatever they are called, is not really relevant to the point I was trying to make. All I was trying to say is that vranasm's argument doesn't feel strong to me. To me, it sounds like he was saying "I experienced once lived in a socialist society; and it was bad; therefore socialism is bad."

 

[InnateGamer]

Actually command economy is live and doing well all over the world, even in the US, but not always on a country scale. Companies are often more or less driven by command economy internally, their employees do things because they were assigned to do them, not because they get paid for the assignments they do. They do get paid to be hired, but once they're hired they usually don't get anything for the actual work they do, just the hours. The difference between a capitalistic company and a soviet style company is the way performance is evaluated, a capitalistic company has to convince consumers that they've done something good, a soviet company only has to convince itself it has done something good. I like capitalism and free enterprise.

There are a lot of people who confuse economical and personal liberties with collective liberties, but one does not require or necessitate the other. It is possible to have a dictatorship with full personal liberties.

There are some people who confuse socialism and command economy. Socialism is the ideology that the society can and should take a step away from pure free market in order for the people in general to gain some good. This could mean a ban on dangerous substances, like heroin, or it could mean the levy of a tax to pay for some services like school for kids, or any of a variety of other things. The step away from pure free market could be as small as levying a tax or making unions exempt from anti trust law, or something big like abandoning free market all together, but it's all different forms of socialism. As you see socialism is alive and well all over the globe, even in America. All but none of the politicians in America are socialists, but they're usually too ignorant to know it.

 

[vranasm]

I don't know. Where are the actual socialist societies?

Where and what societies are, or whatever they are called, is not really relevant to the point I was trying to make. All I was trying to say is that vranasm's argument doesn't feel strong to me. To me, it sounds like he was saying "I experienced once lived in a socialist society; and it was bad; therefore socialism is bad."

how many years of failed experiment you really need to see (I suppose 70 of USSR and 40 CSSR, NDR, PLR, HGR, BLR and ROM doesn't suffice)?

The problem with socialism is the lack of motivation.
Or you think people in other parts of world are "better people" and surely will act otherwise?

One of first postulates from communist party here was that the communism to work they have to change people to act the way the system expects. Never happened...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The problem with socialism is the lack of motivation.
Or you think people in other parts of world are "better people" and surely will act otherwise?

Decision rights + incentive + rewards are all messed up under the traditional socialist/communist approach.

Comically, voting nations are the hardest ones to keep away from socialism. I remember reading a Stalin quote somewhere along those lines too. There are always going to be more wealthy people than not, so farming votes = catering increasingly towards socialism.

However, every other government model either results in tyranny at worst or a limited life span at best. How do you put a strong economic sense into governance itself?

Also, strictly speaking banning heroin isn't necessarily socialist, although the other examples above are. However, are any of the other examples strictly necessary? To provide goods and services, companies would have to educate people. Are you suggesting that organizations subject to market discipline would do an inferior job of this relative to government? I find that assertion lacking in basis. We haven't seen what a reasonably wealthy nation that acts with minimal-to-no socialist policies looks like in modern history. I can't think of a single example. There are a multitude of examples of heavily socialist countries in recent history, and they tend not to do well.

Also, for a bit more humor/lightheartedness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

 

[Sian]

Scandinavia pre2k strikes me as the closests hit on working socialism, while still being an democracy ...

true ... taxes on the high side of 50% but doctors and hospitals are free and you wouldn't have to sell your house if you was unlucky and lost your job or got sick (at least not unless it was over a very long period of time

 

[AJ11]

Scandinavia pre2k strikes me as the closests hit on working socialism, while still being an democracy ...

true ... taxes on the high side of 50% but doctors and hospitals are free and you wouldn't have to sell your house if you was unlucky and lost your job or got sick (at least not unless it was over a very long period of time

The bold part just means people can bludge, a significant problem in most socialist nations, including New Zealand where only 40% of the working population is actually working, and less than 50% of THEM make a significant contribution to the government's tax income.

And having an income tax in the 65-70% region does not make me want to excell and earn more. I'd rather do the minimum and spend the rest of my time playing Civ4. Not a good way to run a country or an economy.

Lack of incentive to work to better oneself and in doing so, the nation, is a major problem with ANY socialist paradigm because socialism demands that someone (i.e., those who refuse to work) gains something for nothing. What point is there to work if the dole pays for my food, and everything else is taken care of (children's education, healthcare, etc.)? Why not have fun instead?

That is why socialist countries are generally screwed, whether economically (i.e., physically) or have indoctrinated their people to love mediocrity to the point of them being screwed mentally.