A question to Communists:

[BasketCase]

Well, I don't want to do manual labor but

Your surrender is accepted.

Well, I would starve to death if I don't mow your lawn, how exactly is that so much better?

No you wouldn't. Watch:

Greenpeace, I'll give you five bucks if you mow my front lawn.
Do you accept?
Nope. Didn't think so.
Are you starving to death?
No.
Have I somehow deprived you of your food supply?

NO.

See? You were not short of food before I asked if you would mow my lawn. You are not short of food after refusing.

I win.

 

[greenpeace]

Your surrender is accepted.

Can you explain to me why you stop debating someone when they say they thought your idea was too stupid to debate, but you find it acceptable to not read what someone says and just make some out-of-context childish remark (no offense to children though).

Seriously, I want what I produce, its that simple. Sure its a hassle having to breath in and out 24/7, but its worth it to me because it keeps me alive. Same with farming, I do it to keep me alive. In your society, however, people do work to provide something they don't neccessarily want to get the food that they do want, and this just increases the amount of unwanted labor.

No you wouldn't. Watch:

Greenpeace, I'll give you five bucks if you mow my front lawn.
Do you accept?
Nope. Didn't think so.
Are you starving to death?
No.
Have I somehow deprived you of your food supply?

NO.

See? You were not short of food before I asked if you would mow my lawn. You are not short of food after refusing.

I win.

So if I didn't starve were did the food magically appear?

 

[BasketCase]

Can you explain to me why you stop debating someone

Certainly. I finally realized I'm talking to a brick wall.

No, it's not. You farm against your will because you're afraid of pain and death. Slave owners use the same methods.

Well, the actual manual labor I don't want

EXACTLY. You don't want to. But you do it anyway. That is called "against your will". I am not going to let you rewrite the dictionary to suit your agenda. You are doing something against your will.

Well, I don't want to do manual labor but

You just keep saying the same thing again and again. I explain why that thing doesn't work, but you just keep saying it.

How am I supposed to respond to that???

 

[greenpeace]

How am I supposed to respond to that???

By reading the second part of the post. As I said the product is worth doing the unwanted labor because people really want food. This is different than your society because your producing something other than basics to get the basics, so it just increases the amount of unwanted work.

Certainly the manual labor of farming may be against your direct will, but you want to do it anyways because you want the food, its "natural" incentive.

 

[McManus]

I've really been trying to read you two debating here, and i'm quite confuzzled.

You each (almost) yell stuff at each other which hardly seems relevant and are both constantly trying to prove some point, I just don't get what.

For like, the last six pages..

 

[ArneHD]

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why this thread hasn't been locked yet.

 

[Newbunkle]

It could have been a good thread and helped non-communists understand their extremist views. I thought about asking some serious questions myself, but they only talk in ideal scenarios and won't acknowledge the flaws (it must be something like a religion). Some of them even popped in and ignored all the questions altogether, just launching into the same tired anti-capitalist rants. It should be locked now.

 

[greenpeace]

I've really been trying to read you two debating here, and i'm quite confuzzled.

You each (almost) yell stuff at each other which hardly seems relevant and are both constantly trying to prove some point, I just don't get what.

For like, the last six pages..

Let me sum up my views and what points are being argued (at least what I think).

I think that society should be a decentralized state (as in each community rules over itself), where the authority consists of all people in the community able to communicate, in which the people making up the authority democratically make decisions. These decisions are only whether or not someone in the community is harmed/harming/ or will harm another and what to do to prevent harm from happening/continueing to happen and to compensate for loss that did happen. The other power of the authority is to fairly distribute natural land (ie. things that aren't produced by humans) where fairly is based on want and need (where need means something neccessary to produce another thing).
The right of a citizen is to be able to do anything other than intentionally cause net harm and participate in the authority and the only time this can be violated is if a person performed/performing/will perform harm.
Harm is defined as physical/emotional/intellectual/damage, not providing basics to those in the community who cannot provide themselves with the essentials when it is entirely possible, and the offering of incentives (other than emotional reactions than do not do damage like laughing), unless its the authority offering the incentives.
edit: I forgot, that stopping people from doing anything other than harm (which excludes this statement) is harm.
The most major point of contention between Basketcase and I is the definition of harm, specifically "the offering of incentives." Also there is some debating over the authority (or at least there was). Basketcase and add/refine this if he wishes (you, Baskecase, are a he, right?).

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why this thread hasn't been locked yet.

Why would this thread be locked? Maybe when it reaches 1,000 posts we can lock it an start "A Question to Communists 2" thread.

 

[Traitorfish]

It could have been a good thread and helped non-communists understand their extremist views.

It could have been, excerpt that the first post- the titular "question"- was basically a fallacious declaration of capitalist superiority, so the whole topic has kind of been screwed from the start.
If you really want to find out about communism- or any other major political ideology, for that matter- read a book, don't hang about on internet forums.

 

[greenpeace]

It could have been, excerpt that the first post- the titular "question"- was basically a fallacious declaration of capitalist superiority, so the whole topic has kind of been screwed from the start.
If you really want to find out about communism- or any other major political ideology, for that matter- read a book, don't hang about on internet forums.

Well, you can't talk/debate to a book which is a very big downside, also you can only get one view from one book and books are very long which is fine if you have alot of time, but in general posters are much more concise and to the point.
Besides, debate is fun. Also, I think we've managed to turn around the quality of the thread from the start to a degree.

 

[BasketCase]

It could have been a good thread and helped non-communists understand their extremist views. I thought about asking some serious questions myself, but they only talk in ideal scenarios and won't acknowledge the flaws (it must be something like a religion). Some of them even popped in and ignored all the questions altogether, just launching into the same tired anti-capitalist rants. It should be locked now.

No objection here. I've been showing signs of bipolar disorder and should have gotten out a long time ago.

 

[CaptainF]

No objection here. I've been showing signs of bipolar disorder and should have gotten out a long time ago.

Ahh I see! THIS thread must have been responsible for the recent OT acidity.

 

[BasketCase]

By reading the second part of the post.

I did read it. It was worthless.

Nothing you said anywhere, in any of your posts, has changed a very basic truth: that you will do work against your will. You keep writing this pretty speech about how you want the end product (usually food when we argue this) and so that supposedly makes it "your will". It does not. You don't want to do something, but you do it anyway.

And a paycheck is much preferable over the "natural" incentive you say is permissible. People "want" to farm in order to get food? Then the threat of hunger is an incentive, no different from the incentives you decry as crimes against humanity. A paycheck is much more flexible and less cruel.

You keep trying to draw some distinction of incentives offered by people, which makes said incentives bad. Forget it. Who offers an incentive is not important.

Now, let me tell you what IS bad. If I tied you up on a table and threatened to cut your eyeballs out if you don't tell me where the U.S. keeps its blueprints for nuclear warheads. THAT is a bad kind of incentive. But it's bad because a person is intentionally creating your predicament in order to threaten you with it. A paycheck offered by a boss does not do this. I'll say it again: if you refuse that paycheck, NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU THAT WASN'T ALREADY GOING TO HAPPEN. Your distiction is therefore bogus.


Oh, and by the way--the kid who actually ended up mowing my front lawn because you refused? He didn't spend the money on food.

He spent it on a couple of XBox games.

 

[BasketCase]

Ahh I see! THIS thread must have been responsible for the recent OT acidity.

Well, this thread is definitely responsible for Off Topic warming.

The huge volume of hot air being spewed by myself and Greenpeace has got everybody hot under the collar, melting cool tempers and drowning the thread in a rising tide of posts.

 

[greenpeace]

I did read it. It was worthless.

Nothing you said anywhere, in any of your posts, has changed a very basic truth: that you will do work against your will. You keep writing this pretty speech about how you want the end product (usually food when we argue this) and so that supposedly makes it "your will". It does not. You don't want to do something, but you do it anyway.

And a paycheck is much preferable over the "natural" incentive you say is permissible. People "want" to farm in order to get food? Then the threat of hunger is an incentive, no different from the incentives you decry as crimes against humanity. A paycheck is much more flexible and less cruel.

Alright I understand but still disagree. You see, natural incentives are a must in every society including yours. Human made incentives are not inmpossible to stop and can be eliminated.

You keep trying to draw some distinction of incentives offered by people, which makes said incentives bad.

I didn't say they are bad because they were offered by humans, I said they are unneccessary because they were offered by humans. Starving is natural and will always happen in every society, paychecks are human and are not neccessary.

Forget it. Who offers an incentive is not important.

You can't ignore your stomach, you can ignore your boss (unless you are living in a Capitalistic society).

Now, let me tell you what IS bad. If I tied you up on a table and threatened to cut your eyeballs out if you don't tell me where the U.S. keeps its blueprints for nuclear warheads. THAT is a bad kind of incentive. But it's bad because a person is intentionally creating your predicament in order to threaten you with it. A paycheck offered by a boss does not do this. I'll say it again: if you refuse that paycheck, NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU THAT WASN'T ALREADY GOING TO HAPPEN. Your distiction is therefore bogus.

Boss' paychecks increase the amount of labor done against peoples' will because it makes it so that farmers will do more work than just supporting themselves and the young, elderly, and sickly so that others can possibly work against their will doing something else. I'll I'm doing is making it so that people are only working against their will providing the things they want enough to make up for the work. So for example, sure having a luxury masion that is a square kilometer in size would be nice for the family living in it, but if people don't want to have to put enough effort to make it than the net result is that it won't be built.

Oh, and by the way--the kid who actually ended up mowing my front lawn because you refused? He didn't spend the money on food.

He spent it on a couple of XBox games.

He must have been really confused if you tried to explain it to him

But still, in that paticular case it worked out for you and the boy, but it didn't neccessarily work out for all those involved in making that possible. This system insures that everyone involved in the process of making it, waned to make it.

 

[BasketCase]

Alright I understand but still disagree. You see, natural incentives are a must in every society including yours.

Not at all. In fact, we've largely succeeded at eliminating them all. Not completely, to be sure. When they do occur, they are called crimes against humanity--the United States is frequently lambasted for having a problem with homelessness and hunger when we are such a wealthy nation. "It Shouldn't Happen Here". Poor nations demand U.S. help in eliminating hunger, disease, and other natural incentives.

All of human history has been one long, ongoing attempt to eliminate the very thing you say is necessary. We cannot abide natural incentives. And don't pretend to me--if a jackal ate your son or daughter for breakfast, you would go berzerk with rage, and either call Animal Control to demand the animal be put down, or you would grab a shotgun and take care of it yourself.

I didn't say they are bad because they were offered by humans, I said they are unneccessary because they were offered by humans.

Good enough for me. Your reasoning is still bollocks. Incentives offered by humans ARE necessary because almost all humans except you prefer it that way. And they prefer it that way because a paycheck is less cruel, less harmful, and less restrictive on your freedoms than nature.

Boss' paychecks increase the amount of labor done against peoples' will

No they don't. If you don't want a paycheck, don't work for a boss. You said it yourself:

Seriously, I want what I produce, its that simple. Sure its a hassle having to breath in and out 24/7, but its worth it to me because it keeps me alive. Same with farming, I do it to keep me alive.

If you don't want to make XBox games, don't. Buy a damn farm and go farm on it. Some of the food you grow? You're going to end up trading some of it for farming tools, seeds, fertilizer, and the like. And the outcome will be the same: you will not keep what you produce.

But still, in that paticular case it worked out for you and the boy, but it didn't neccessarily work out for all those involved in making that possible. This system insures that everyone involved in the process of making it, waned to make it.

I've covered that already--capitalism already works that way. The XBox games that kid bought? They had already been made. They were already sitting on the shelf. It was three years ago that some programmer like me decided to become a programmer and write up Gears of War or Guitar Hero 3 or Extreme Beach Volleyball or Ratchet & Clank or SimBrothel or whatever.

And this is the same thing that happened the last 824 times I challenged any and all takers to come up with an alternative to capitalism: they describe something which turns out to be functionally indistinguishable from capitalism. Congratulations, you're Number 825.

 

[Gecko1]

Perhaps we can have a government that promotes capitalism so much that they acually have buisinesses in the government so that the state can earn more than tax money. So that the state government can also work as a normal corporation, this allows people to buy goods from a more stable institution with (hopefully) higher quality standards.

 

[greenpeace]

Not at all. In fact, we've largely succeeded at eliminating them all. Not completely, to be sure. When they do occur, they are called crimes against humanity--the United States is frequently lambasted for having a problem with homelessness and hunger when we are such a wealthy nation. "It Shouldn't Happen Here". Poor nations demand U.S. help in eliminating hunger, disease, and other natural incentives.

All of human history has been one long, ongoing attempt to eliminate the very thing you say is necessary. We cannot abide natural incentives. And don't pretend to me--if a jackal ate your son or daughter for breakfast, you would go berzerk with rage, and either call Animal Control to demand the animal be put down, or you would grab a shotgun and take care of it yourself.

Capitalism just takes natural incentives (starvation mainly) and applies them to get people to work on things unrelated to providing what they want. I mean, why do you work? The only way to end "natural" incentives is to kill yourself (or to end your want of anything).

Good enough for me. Your reasoning is still bollocks. Incentives offered by humans ARE necessary because almost all humans except you prefer it that way. And they prefer it that way because a paycheck is less cruel, less harmful, and less restrictive on your freedoms than nature.

There still is a paycheck. If you farm you get the paycheck of food. If you build a house you get the paycheck of shelter. What could be so bad about getting what you produce instead of countless people working a job they would rather not so that they can get food?

No they don't. If you don't want a paycheck, don't work for a boss. You said it yourself:

If you don't want to make XBox games, don't. Buy a damn farm and go farm on it. Some of the food you grow? You're going to end up trading some of it for farming tools, seeds, fertilizer, and the like. And the outcome will be the same: you will not keep what you produce.

Do you really believe everyone does the job they do because they really like the work and that if they were given the same no matter what they did (including not doing anything) they would continue working the same job at the same level of effort? Almost definently not. I am simply saying we should only work against our will if we want what we produce enough to make up for it.

I've covered that already--capitalism already works that way. The XBox games that kid bought? They had already been made. They were already sitting on the shelf. It was three years ago that some programmer like me decided to become a programmer and write up Gears of War or Guitar Hero 3 or Extreme Beach Volleyball or Ratchet & Clank or SimBrothel or whatever.

And this is the same thing that happened the last 824 times I challenged any and all takers to come up with an alternative to capitalism: they describe something which turns out to be functionally indistinguishable from capitalism. Congratulations, you're Number 825.

How is this Capitalism? There is no guarentee that the people working in the CD factories wanted the product (or that they even got it). Your system has people working in a CD factory for food, mine has people working in CD factories for CDs. Yours has prostitutes working for food, mine has... well is almost definently doesn't, unless someone really wants STDs (hey, if you can say SimBrothel its only fair).

Also I'm referring to the system as "X" from now on (makes it easier).

Perhaps we can have a government that promotes capitalism so much that they acually have buisinesses in the government so that the state can earn more than tax money. So that the state government can also work as a normal corporation, this allows people to buy goods from a more stable institution with (hopefully) higher quality standards.

If one of the primary jobs of government is to regulate corporations, that would lead to the government regulating itself, which is a somewhat large problem.

 

[BasketCase]

What could be so bad about getting what you produce instead of countless people working a job they would rather not so that they can get food?

Because if you don't know how to farm but really enjoy making refrigerators, you're going to have dozens of refrigerators all over your house, and that's it. Your crappy hand-built house won't have any carpet. You won't have a sofa to sit in. Or a car. In fact, you'll basically have nothing but a bunch of refrigerators when you only need one. See? It doesn't work.

What's bad about all these crackpot ideas you keep coming up with is that they don't work.

Try this instead. Build refrigerators for other people. Keep one (or however many you want) and trade the other refrigerators for a well-built house, plush carpeting, a stuffed leather sofa, a nice car, stuff like that.

Two advantages: #1, you are doing what you want. #2, you are receiving what you want, not what you produce.

That's capitalism.

I am simply saying we should only work against our will if we want what we produce enough to make up for it.

And if we want something we can't produce and don't know how to make....?

How is this Capitalism? There is no guarentee that the people working in the CD factories wanted the product (or that they even got it). Your system has people working in a CD factory for food

Wrong. Completely wrong. I go over it again and again and you keep failing to get it. Brick wall.

My system has people working in a CD factory for anything they want. Food, house, carpeting, a car, a refrigerator.

Or XBox games. That kid who mowed my lawn? He doesn't produce anything. How the hell can you keep what you produce when you run a lawn mower back and forth across a lawn?? What are you going to do, keep the grass clippings??? What's that poor kid going to do, haul the grass clippings to EB Games and trade fourteen bags of grass clippings for a copy of Guitar Hero 3??? Gimme a goddamn break.

If one of the primary jobs of government is to regulate corporations, that would lead to the government regulating itself, which is a somewhat large problem.

Naah, we Yankees have got it all dialed in. We purposefully put our government together badly, so all the departments get in each others' way and nobody in said government can get anything done.

It's worked just fine for over two centuries.

 

[greenpeace]

Because if you don't know how to farm but really enjoy making refrigerators, you're going to have dozens of refrigerators all over your house, and that's it. Your crappy hand-built house won't have any carpet. You won't have a sofa to sit in. Or a car. In fact, you'll basically have nothing but a bunch of refrigerators when you only need one. See? It doesn't work.

What's bad about all these crackpot ideas you keep coming up with is that they don't work.

Try this instead. Build refrigerators for other people. Keep one (or however many you want) and trade the other refrigerators for a well-built house, plush carpeting, a stuffed leather sofa, a nice car, stuff like that.

Two advantages: #1, you are doing what you want. #2, you are receiving what you want, not what you produce.

That's capitalism.

If you look at this scenario from another persons perspective they have to produce the things that person wants, and how can you guarentee that that person wanted to produce those things?

Also, you can continue to make refrigerators in X (yay, I used it!) its just that your more likely to share the burden of farming

And if we want something we can't produce and don't know how to make....?

It depends, if there are people who can and want to, then they logically will and they may share. If nobody both knows how to and wants to then its not worth producing.

Wrong. Completely wrong. I go over it again and again and you keep failing to get it. Brick wall.

My system has people working in a CD factory for anything they want. Food, house, carpeting, a car, a refrigerator.

That just increases the amount of unwanted work, I mean people would be willing to do practicaly anything for food which is what your system entails, even though all that really needs to be done is farming.

Or XBox games. That kid who mowed my lawn? He doesn't produce anything. How the hell can you keep what you produce when you run a lawn mower back and forth across a lawn?? What are you going to do, keep the grass clippings??? What's that poor kid going to do, haul the grass clippings to EB Games and trade fourteen bags of grass clippings for a copy of Guitar Hero 3??? Gimme a goddamn break.

Well, thats more of a service, so if you want somebody to be better off than would be your "product," but that service doesn't produce food, so that wouldn't get a person food.

Naah, we Yankees have got it all dialed in. We purposefully put our government together badly, so all the departments get in each others' way and nobody in said government can get anything done.

It's worked just fine for over two centuries.

Yeah, I definently wouldn't want the government to turn into a corporation.