Political Philosophy discussion

[pepper2000]

Let's talk about political philosophy, e.g. the merits of socialism and free market capitalism, here.

 

[Noriad2]

Economy consists of exchange.

If you give me a Euro and I give you a whole bread, it is an equal value exchange.
If you give me a Euro and I give you only a small slice of bread in return, it is an unequal value exchange.
If I take your Euro and give nothing in return, it is a criminal exchange.

People like equal exchange and don't like to be subjected to unequal or criminal exchange. You can force people into accepting an unequal or criminal exchange, but people will try to get out of that economic relationship at the earliest opportunity. The old slave societies suffered from periodic bloody revolts. Thus an economic relationship based on equal value exchange is not just more civilized, it is also safer and more stable.

Early Man hunted Mammoths without giving Mammoths anything back. The Mammoths protested this by going extinct.
Later, Man invented animal husbandry. In exchange for meat, wool, milk and eggs, farmers gave the animals shelter, guaranteed food and protection from predators. Thus a more lasting economic relationship was made.

There is also excessive exchange, in which you give back more than you receive. Such an economic relationship will lead to a rapidly rising volume of exchange. Microsoft initially became big by giving away MS-DOS for free. But if you engage in excessive exchange, make sure you can handle it, or you will go bankrupt by your own success. An excessive exchange is basically an unequal exchange in reverse.

What you reward you get more of. Many things that are wrong in the West are caused by this: rewarding what is wrong and punishing what is right. The more you reward unemployment by unemployment benefits, the more people will become unemployed. The more you punish labor with taxes, the less people will work. A generous welfare system rewards people for NOT growing food, no matter how many people are hungry.

However, society cannot function without some kind of unequal exchange. Nobody can expect a baby or somebody with a broken back to earn his own livelihood. How much of unequal exchange is necessary and how much to enforce it, is the primary problem in political and economic philosophy.

Parasitism, theft, solidarity, generosity, welfare are all words for the same thing: an unequal exchange. The difference is usually in how voluntary the exchange is.

It is possible to pass on an unequal exchange. For example, a politician can buy votes with tax money, for example by promising generous pensions. Thus he starts an unequal exchange. However, somebody has to pay for it and you can tax people only so much before they move to another country (or at least stow away their capital there), or start to avoid paying taxes in other ways. So the government must borrow money. But you can only borrow so much money until lenders start to worry about your ability to pay back. Borrowing money and not paying it back is equal to theft. Or the government can pay the bills by printing money, in which case people get stolen from by inflation. Capital will flee to another country to avoid the unequal exchange of inflation. Or entrepreneurs will simply skip your country when doing business.

As long as the unequal exchange can be passed on, or somebody can be forced to accept the unequal exchange, the economy keeps running. Until the unequal exchange can be passed on no longer, and exchange breaks down. This is an alternative explanation for the occurrence of economic crises.

So watch out for politicians who want to get elected by promising people free stuff without bothering to explain who has to pay for it and why. He will start a series of pass-ons of unequal exchange that will eventually cause an economic crisis in which everybody gets poorer.

An economy based on equal exchange will be a prosperous one, as everybody will want to participate. However, it is an uncomfortable truth that the easiest way to get rich personally is to get other people's money in an unequal or criminal exchange, either by outright stealing, or economic schemes like speculation. And if everybody is more focused on getting other people's money instead of producing more of value, society as a whole will be poorer. Thus for a prosperous society, a rule of law is necessary, and a culture in which equal exchange and honesty are considered virtues.

Political power (which ultimately is based on military power) is the ability to enforce exchange, or protect yourself against exchanges you don't like. It can be used to enforce equal exchange or unequal exchange.

 

[raxo2222]

I think discussion between @Thunderbrd @Toffer90 and @tmv @DC0 can be shortened to this:
They all discuss socioeconomics.
Thundebrd and Toffer says they need moderately high oversight to reduce mistakes and have good disaster response - strong safety net made by central government.
tmv and DC0 says we don't need much of oversight, as people should help each other - strong safety net built by low level organizations and social networks.
First one depends on honesty and transparency of government and on law system, that doesn't have loopholes.
Second one depends on altruism and generosity of average person and on law system, that can efficiently protect citizens.

Both of them are prone to corruption and decay.

I heard, that Australia or other countries are more free market, when world economy is growing and more social democracy, when world economy is in trouble.
That is they have some sort of adaptive system.

I think Australia is ran by some sort of AI

Pure capitalism and pure communism are EXTREMELY prone to bugs in code

Australia, France, Germany, Britain and Switzerland seems to have their stuff well maintained.

Here is GDP/Capita changes since last 40 years.
USA seems like it slows down because it looks like straight line

If keep inequality and environmental troubles in check, then world economy will be >5x bigger within next 50 - 100 years than currently is.
This would mean needs for most people should be easy to meet if world doesn't descend to authoritarian mess.
Now world GDP/capita is at $11000
Here is prediction for next 30 years, assuming things won't combust spontaneously.

 

[tmv]

Australia, France, Germany, Britain and Switzerland seems to have their stuff well maintained.

I'm going to focus on this one for now. The problem is that we cannot only look at the economic development. Milton Friedman (who was admittedly not a leftist) wrote that welfare states are incompatible with immigration (cf. http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-milton-friedman-really-said.html), and we can see some results here, especially in the last few years. Switzerland has always had a rather strict immigration policy, Britain's main reason for leaving the EU is the ability to close its borders, Australia has implemented strict policies in that regard, and France (for a few decades) and Germany (for a few years) has seen a rise of right-wing parties. Of course, the full story is more complex - but that there is a problem is clear to see.

The USA was very immigration-friendly before 1914, and back then it was not a welfare state. If Friedman is right, it seems every society must make a choice, and forego an important aspect of humanitarianism. Either we welcome people who might get killed in their home countries, or we take care of our poor (who might or might not be able to help themselves if we don't stifle them). So what do we want? Do we pay the price of closing down our borders, see a rise of right-wing parties and hope for the best regarding our democracies, or do we restrict both the welfare state and the overregulation that in some cases prevents people from helping themselves?

 

[raxo2222]

I think its better to have heavily restricted and regulated immigration than to reduce welfare and regulations, that protect citizens.
Lowering quality of life for poorest 10% to accommodate immigrants wouldn't be too popular move (unchanged welfare expenses diluted in higher population).
That is in country with properly functioning government and journalism.

There is technological progress too.
It may make higher immigration more bearable, while improving quality of life for everyone.
Also it may help poor countries.

 

[DC0]

Then stop referring to socialism as if the term is synonymous with communism. It is not.

May be officially. But we were taught in the USSR that socialism is a transition step to communism.
I believe socialism as a term has appeared because it was painfully obvious even to most stupid people that communism is unattainable idea.

You admitted in a post that government MUST handle some services.

I doubt this very much
I know for a fact that modern society can live without government easily. Prosper, actually.

If you would concede that point is false so as to uphold other statements you're making here, then you must then also admit that you are an anarchist that believes that no degree of government is positive and I think we can all admit that this model IS great until someone with power hunger takes full advantage of the vulnerability of that scenario. RE centuries of Chinese history showing many attempts to maintain stable states of Anarchy only to eventually fall to the latest dynastic dictatorship.

Yes, I'm anarcho-capitalist and I've already wrote about it previously.

Your scenario is very likely when someone will try to establish another government in whatever form. My scenario is different. There will always be competition between power houses (maybe even wars, who knows?) for a dominance, but there will never emerge clear winner. Let's suppose there are now only two major power houses. Emerged though competition. And one will decide to become dominant power and establish itself as a "government". Then these two will engage in conflict which will eventually drain all the power from them. And this will lead to another several power houses entering the scene, only to start competition for power again.

This is exactly how competition on the free market works.
Companies strive for domination. One wins competition (usually by dumping price, which can be compared to socialists offering "free" stuff to people), drives others out of business and becomes monopoly. Next it jacks prices up to compensate losses it sustained during competition. It grows big and inefficient, so more income doesn't generate more profits. Immediately other companies enter market to compete with clumsy and inefficient ex-monopoly. And new cycle begins. Winners? Consumers.

Above scenario would happen if there was no government. In whatever form.
Because if government exists, monopoly will go to government and will pay politicians to protect it from competition by enacting barriers for other companies wishing to enter the market. So new laws are immediately enacted "to protect intellectual property", "to protect health and well-being of citizens", and "to ensure certain level of service quality and safety". "Unless you want people to die!"

within a select group of powerful oligarchs outside of government wielding their massive wealth influence to dictate policy decisions upon those governmental regulators they support.

As it exists today. Because government is a tool of power. It's The One Ring from Lord of the Rings, which every vile power hungry sociopath craves to possess. As long as it exists, there will be fight to possess government.

Perhaps with the modern age of cyber connectivity, a new governmental structure more akin to original Greek democracy might become possible, at which point, more frequent applications of socialism within the system (NOT a complete lack of ownership right) will be less susceptible to corruption. In essence, the nation would become a company under control of the people, all with an equal share.

That's not exactly how Greek democracy worked, AFAIK. First of all, only certain people could vote in Greek democracy. Property owners. Limited democracy (republic, essentially) is very useful tool. Because unlimited democracy will always become mob rule though socialists.

Because people like free stuff. Even if they understand that it is only free for them because it is taken away from someone else. That's exactly the reason why national-socialists (aka nazies) were so popular in Germany in 1930-1943. Germans were no fools, but they enjoyed free stuff which was plundered from Jews, Slavs and other European nations. They understood very clearly where free stuff is coming from.

I used to agree. The one thing that has made humanity such a survivable species is much less its intelligence and much more its cooperation.

Voluntary cooperation is fine and should exist. And will surely exist. More of cooperation will exist, when there will be no government to force "proper" forms of cooperation on people.

and our leaders are held to the same levels of exposure in a truly democratic system where the people have power rather than the elite wealthy few, we have nothing to be afraid of in community awareness of who we are.

That's why real journalism is essential. But NOT A SURVEILLANCE STATE. It should be only real investigative journalism, not some shady "Patriot act" jobs spying on political opponents while abusing state power.

I also believe we should all be striving to be understanding of the fact that our separation is just illusory to begin with and at the core we are all the same being living out his own creation, therefore we should be supportive of growth and change and the evolution of one another towards more 'pure' beings who can and would add more value to the community than they take from it. Some might call this an attitude of forgiveness but not necessarily acceptance.

Not "to support". I strongly prefer "to live our own lives". There is a huge difference.
"To support" implies that somebody must do something.
I say just let people live as they want. If someone starts stepping on other's toes, others must have a legitimate freedom to protect their toes with whatever means they consider necessary.

Your assumption that man is inherently evil is deeply flawed.

I never made such assumption. I wrote that people are complicated creatures. And that all people are different. And people are influenced by their genes, and are harnessing power of subconscience by conscience. At least try to. Some people.

The great insight for human beings to grasp here is that, just as cells of the body make up a larger whole, we are collectively ONE, that others, all others, matter as much as we do and that a world where everybody accepts this as a fact and seeks to make things better for all

I agree. But it is critically important to add that there might be cancer cells in a body. Cancer cells are not some external intruders. They are just greedy cells who want everything for themselves. And if body wants to survive it is necessary to kill these cancer cells.

Most advances here in the US are achieving little but to help people obtain more side effects that need to be further supported by other medications and never actually cure a person, just maintain the disease they have in such a way that they don't go downhill. Diseases are too good a cash cow to really solve.

It is really easy to solve this problem.
1) Abolish medical licenses.
2) Abolish Food and Drug Administration with all appropriate legislation.
3) Abolish all and any limitations on health insurances.

These would be really hard under any government, wouldn't it?

Market will do the rest. Exactly following will happen.

Insurance companies will encourage people to sign up to personal doctors. They will encourage subscription based health services, when a person will pay small monthly fee to his personal doctor for "preventive maintenance". Thus, personal doctor will want his patient to be healthy. He, as a doctor, gets his payment anyway! So why work (treat a sick person) when you can make sure your patient is healthy?
As a doctor, he may have as many patients as he wants. He can set his monthly fee as high or as low to make him comfortable with number and type of patients this fee will bring to him.

Insurance companies and word of mouth will compile lists of reputable doctors who know their craft.

Also, person will pay for a medical insurance covering whatever medical condition might happen.

Insurance companies will be happy, because they will have all clear and real information about patient's health. So they will be able to set a price of insurance for each person individually. Person lives a healthy life, visits his personal reputable doctor regularly, all checks are fine? Please get your lowest price of insurance. Insurance companies will fight among themselves to sell insurance to such people.

This will encourage people to live healthy lives.
Just imagine how much money will be saved on social advertisement for prevention of smoking, prevention of alcohol and drug consumption, for safe sex, etc.

Of course this only applies when profit is the motive rather than the benefit of humanity.

Profit motive doesn't automatically exclude benefits of humanity. I've described above a free market health industry which will greatly benefit humanity.

Under present system, however, when competition is limited by few major companies using government (intellectual property, licenses, FDA approvals), these few companies are enjoying profits at expense of humanity.

Otherwise, the US wouldn't be falling so dramatically behind so many of its contemporaries in so many ways.

Poor, poor US of A.

The truth is, absolute socialism (aka communism) IS unsustainable by design. So is unchecked capitalism.

Unchecked capitalism has never been tried.
Capitalism has in it a perfect tool for self-checking by design. It is called free market.
If free market exists, competition will check everyone.
It doesn't mean a monopoly will never emerge. It surely will. But it won't last for long in a free market.
Industries in which huge investments in infrastructure are required will have 3 or 4 largest competing companies. And several regional ones. And several niche ones. Great live example is a mobile telephony industry.

Both systems fall to the same real problem, human corruption.

I might agree with several caveats. There is a huge difference in a degree in which socialism/communism and capitalism are susceptible to basic human nature. Not human corruption. It seems to me it is you who make assumption that man is inherently evil

must be protected against by a strong set of legal structures and a culture that fosters a reverence for those structures such that they are held to be unbreachable.

Not at all. Only something unnatural should be protected. Something unfit for survival in real life.
Feudalism must be protected. Monarchy. Dictatorship of proletariat.
Real freedom should not be protected by any outside force: it will protect itself. As soon as each and every person is free to protect himself and his interests by whichever means necessary, freedom will stand free.

Nobody is perfect and fostering the sense of responsibility for one another and for the well-being of one another strongly diminishes the frequency of people making these kinds of bad decisions to begin with.

No it doesn't.

In USSR we had "comrade's courts".

When somebody was falling out of the line, like low grades at school, low productivity at work, lack of self discipline, "moral degradation" (aka promiscuity), such person would be subjected to trial by court of his peers. It was called "comrade's court". A teacher or a boss would preside over such court. Often co-presiding would be a member of communist party or komsomol (or pioneers organization). At work, or at school his colleagues during such court hearing would bring into light and strongly condemn wrong behavior.

Also, we had a whole movie industry making films about proper conduct of proper socialist person in socialist society. Also, there were short films making fun of wrong self-conduct. Like laziness, stealing from your workplace, etc.
BTW, I highly recommend to watch soviet short comedy film called "Davidov and Goliaf". It's insanely funny. Subject is "it is wrong to steal from your workplace".
Argh. I wanted to add English transcript but it's unavailable for public contributions.

Long story short, nothing worked. Therefore only self-discipline. And this only emerges when a free person wants to achieve something in a friendly environment.

 

[Toffer90]

As it exists today. Because government is a tool of power. It's The One Ring from Lord of the Rings, which every vile power hungry sociopath craves to possess. As long as it exists, there will be fight to possess government.

You are saying we should not have any government, meaning there should be no nations, because every power hungry sociopath craves to possess it.
What will then stop power hungry sociopaths from forming their own government, because they crave to possess a government, and become despots of their self made nation?

My scenario is different. There will always be competition between power houses (maybe even wars, who knows?) for a dominance, but there will never emerge clear winner. Let's suppose there are now only two major power houses. Emerged though competition. And one will decide to become dominant power and establish itself as a "government". Then these two will engage in conflict which will eventually drain all the power from them. And this will lead to another several power houses entering the scene, only to start competition for power again.

You are saying that instead of having nations and government we should have power houses that acts as governments who fights each other over land and power.

Do you not see how naive your vision is, how deeply flawed that logic is? That governments of the people should be disbanded by the people to give room for tyrannical states, that won't let the people disband them without a fight, to replace them.
Are you serious?

 

[DC0]

The rape capital "award", or rather claim, was based on the amount of reported sexual offenses in Sweden, it includes sexual harrasment, indecent exposure, etc. as well as rape.

This "explanation" has already been debunked. There were no changes to terms regarding sex crimes in Sweden after immigration disaster happened.

Regarding the murder statistic in Sweden, yeah it has increased slightly the last 15 years, but countries like Finland, Canada, UK, Germany still have more murders per 100 000 inhabitants than what Sweden has.

USA has number of murders on steady decline for last 15 years. In absolute figures USA will be first, but now let's remember how many people live in USA and how many people live in Sweden

I agree that the grenade issue in Sweden is quite worrying, there is more gang activity in the country lately, and they have successfully smuggled in some heavy weaponry like ak47's and hand grenades.

And one must really wonder where did all these weapon caches come from?
These immigrants are poor. At least 90% of them are on welfare. So who is sponsoring automatic weapons and explosives purchases by these predominantly muslim immigrants? I wonder...
And why Swedish government recently issued directions to its subjects what to do in case of life threatening emergency like war?

The no-go zones in Sweden is a myth, there are areas where ambulances and the police take extra caution when entering in the city of Malmö.

Sigh.

Why are we even talking about this, are you claiming that the minor crime wave in Sweden today would not be there if there was les taxation there?

No, I just mentioned Swedish disaster and you started arguing everything is fine there. So I clarified what exactly I consider disaster.
Disaster and high taxes are somewhat correlated. In a way that Swedes are forced to pay for their own extinction by their current government. Which is socialistic

Scientific studies now possess overwhelming proof that it is anywhere from 60 to 90% genes that determine human behavior and overall results in life. In other words: it is nature, not nurture, which determines a person.

You got any proof of that? Something to back up this claim?

Human Intelligence (IQ) | The Experts Interview.
Gene Wars | r/K Selection Theory" Series

I couldn't figure out why the doctors of that hospital decided to override the wish of Gard's parents about the hospital-transfer. There are some examples where it is right for the doctor to override the will of the parent's but this was probably not one of them.
The case of Alfie was similar, the doctors overrode the parents wish to keep the child on life support claiming it was unkind and inhumane to keep him on life support.
Without universal health care there are thousand of examples of people being forced to take loved ones off life support because they can't afford it, that is not much better imo.

"Not much better"... These are uncomparable cases.

Bureaucrat prevents parents from trying to save their child's life. With no any expense to taxpayers.
This is a horrible proof that Brits are not free. They are merely subjects of the government they currently have in their country.

"people being forced to take loved ones off life support because they can't afford it" - that would be a punishable crime, AFAIK. Therefore nobody is forcing them. It's a choice made by some people about their loved ones.

If you actually have any proofs that somebody was taken off life support because they couldn't afford it, I'm sure law enforcement would be very interested to know about such cases. I'd take a look at them also. So please, indulge us.

Volvo Cars haven't called for bankruptcy. The sold it because they precisely tried to avoid calling for bankruptcy.

You got any proof?

Not except for my experience. Companies are never sold when they are profitable.

I've worried about overpopulation since I was a kid, it is the entire human race that worries me in that regard, not the Chinese in particular.

Overpopulation turned out to be a false fear. Scientific research which arrived to "overpopulation problem" was conducted in the beginning of 20th century within scientific knowledge base which existed in that period of time.

Here are 3 examples of similar wrong scientific conclusions from top of my head:
1) Since beginning of states economists were predicting that people will die from starvation because farms won't be able to produce enough food. Then came all sorts of agricultural advances: plow, yoke, horse collar, combustion engine, tractor, fertilizers, etc. And look at us now! Still living. Even feeding those people in Africa.
2) In the end of 19th century it was predicted that cities will be buried in horse crap. Then automobile came and horse driven vehicles vanished. And horse crap, too.
3) Global warming. As an increase of average surface temperature on planet Earth induced by human activities. Turned out to be a hoax.

So it's time to abandon that wrong theory.

People are actually the most precious resource any country can have. People can do so many stuff...
IMO the best inspiring movie about value of person and power of humans is Interstellar.

Problems with Chinese are:
1) They are competitors, so we must stay competitive. It's dangerous to give up all manufacturing to China.
2) They are rivals, because they are still communists and as all communists do - they want to spread communism all over the world. And that's bad. Been there, tried that.

Let's not forget all the other taxes like wealth tax, property tax, corporate taxes and so on that also mainly reduce the salaries for those who have more than others.

Apparently you didn't understand my explanation. I give up.

Alright, last effort.

Subject 1.
His sole income is a salary.
His salary is 1000.
10 of it is taken away as progressive income tax.
790 more is taken away as indirect taxation. Which is also hidden in over-inflated prices for goods and services consumed daily. Prices are over-inflated because businesses must pay all sorts of high taxes, as moronic as soda tax.

Subject 1 has 80% of his total income taken away from him by force in various forms of taxation.

Subject 2.
His salary is 10000.
8000 of it is taken away by progressive income tax.
He also has passive income 1000000 from different sources (rent, stock portfolio, business).
He optimizes his taxes in family trust, local business and offshore business.
320000 of this passive income is taken away as all sorts of direct and indirect taxation. Including 20000 spent as indirect taxation for goods and services at over inflated prices consumed daily, plus luxury goods and services consumed on regular basis.

Let's calculate. Total income: 10000+1000000=1010000. Total taxes: 8000+320000 = 328000.

Subject 2 has 32,47% of his total income taken away from him by force in various forms of taxation.

Comprendo?
Who is in worse situation because of high taxes?

Sure people with low income will be less capable of saving the money they earn than those that have a bigger salary, but that's the way of the world unless all have equal salaries, even in a tax less society.

OMG

Alright, let's get to basics.

There are two ways to have bigger disposable income:
1) Increase your earnings. That's salary increase, plus all sorts of other income.
2) Decrease your spending. That's pay less in taxes, pay less for other mandatory expenses like food, ride tickets, etc.

Now if taxes are low, Subject 1 will still pay 10 as progressive income tax. BUT! And there is no magic here, just simple mathematics!
Subject 1 will pay only 400 as all sorts of indirect taxation. Because taxes are low. And there is no moronic soda tax. And businesses can keep prices low to be competitive. And they want to be competitive, because people have more disposable income, they have more to spend, and businesses are competing to get all that money. And economy is booming! Yeah! Now we are talking. And everybody who wants a job will have a job! Yeah, baby! Even more disposable income!

So Subject 1 now has only 41% of his income taken away from him.

In my book Subject 1 is more capable of saving money when taxes are low, than when taxes are high.

I consider it a duty to ones fellow citizens, to contribute a fair share of ones spoils to ones society.

Hellooooo Bernie Sanders!
As I've indicated above, high earners actually DO PAY MUCH MORE in taxes than low earners. In absolute figures. And in net taxes (which are taxes paid minus benefits received).
And one may argue that high earners pay MORE than share which can be considered fair. By all means and stretches.

Now, if you can't understand above, I honestly give up.

I used it to mock your claim that government was never intended to redistribute wealth.

Hey! We discussed specifically American government. And it is really easy to prove that American government was never intended to redistribute wealth. Just read Constitution, Bill of Rights and comments of several founding fathers specifically about redistribution of wealth.

There are quite a few studies made on pack animals in general, and also for all great apes that shows that it is in their nature to share food even with those they consider their enemies or dislike when food is scarce.
I'm quite sure it in most cases apply to humans too

Oh please, provide me with links to these studies. "Especially when food is scarce". That's a killer point.

If there are such result of the studies, I don't understand why people can literally kill and cannibalize on fellow humans during hunger.

I know it for a fact, that during Golodomor (terrible hunger artificially induced by communists in Soviet Ukraine to exterminate Ukrainian population) there were common occasions when parents killed their babies they couldn't feed. Only to eat their own babies to stay alive longer and feed older children who were stronger and therefore had better chances of survival.

So please. Do study communism more. And beautiful generous human nature during times of dire need.

Also, there is a horror (officially - historical drama) Soviet movie called Come and See (1985) (original title: Idi i smotri) about a kid during nazi occupation of Soviet Union. You want to learn more about human nature? Watch it. Be warned: you'll change.

Historically, in times of need, people tend to overcome their differences and make choices that may endanger ones own life through sharing scarce food, medicine or housing.

There is a Russian proverb about this: you've heard a bell, but have no idea where it came from.
Let me clarify.

Every sufficiently complicated living organism, including humans, will sacrifice himself in certain life threatening situations, in order so save fellow organism of same species.

There are hundreds of studies and numerous observations.

During my study at university, we had one crazy feminist lady professor of psychology. She was single and very angry and derogative towards males. For whatever reason. She tried to prove that males are inferior to females, and they both know about it, because it is encoded in lower brain. And it "overrides" conscience during life threatening situations and makes males sacrifice themselves in order to save females.
Her favorite proof was a study on rats, which indicated that male rats throw themselves in hot water to be boiled alive to form a bridge, which will be used by female rats to escape danger.
And also there are many historical examples when human males sacrificed their lives to save women and children. And elderly. Take any war as example.

I had to explain to that crazy feminist lady that it doesn't proof inferiority of males. It proves only that when a living organisms are in a danger which seems to threaten survival of their species, several living organisms will sacrifice themselves to save their species. Regardless of sex of survivors.

There are numerous examples when older males would sacrifice their lives in order to save younger males. When only males are around. Take any war as example.

There are examples when a female would sacrifice her life to save a child.

I'm not so sure about your pessimistic view of human nature.

I'm tired of debunking this straw man. I'm not pessimistic of human nature. I just wrote that people are complicated, all different and struggle to harness power of their genes. With varying success rates.

I'm realistic about human nature. Humans may be good, and may be evil. Sometimes transition from one to another depending on circumstances.

compared to Chavez who actually imo quite a competent leader.

Yes, yes, it is obvious for me that you don't understand even basic economics. So yes, Chavez was competent.
But hey, there are still people in Russia who think Putin is good and competent leader.

That what happens when people have very little information about subject and it comes from propaganda outlets.

Exactly, that is funding, funding is dependent on absolute wealth, and population is absolutely tied to the absolute wealth of a country, the amount of well educated people is also tied to the population and to funding. Funding is extremely tied to the general inclination to focus on science within a country.

No, that's not my point and I never implied that.

I hoped to clearly indicate that there will be scientific achievements when:
1) there is a clear purpose for them,
2) it will be rewarded.

And customer who will pay for scientific achievement is the best purpose and reward.

There were many interesting innovations made in the USSR, one should also keep in mind that they were scientifically isolated, was far poorer than the US, and focused more on pure research than on instant money making concepts

Many interesting innovations made in the USSR like what? From top of my head I can remember laser technology was changed to be used in data storage and transfer. And if I remember correctly, it was former Soviet scientist who left USSR (or ex-USSR country) and made this in his new country.
But really, what other and many?

Isolated by who? It was a choice of Russian communists to isolate USSR from the rest of the world. Soviet dissidents called USSR "Prison of nations".

Was far poorer than USA? Hmm, soviet propagandists would frown upon you. And then you would vanish during the night.

Focused more on pure research? So by your definition military RnD is pure research? Because science of USSR was definitely focused on military research.

They invented their own computer system, it is scientifically fascinating at least, it was quite different from what the west designed. USSR's early focus on IT education made the population there generally more computer literate than people in the west for a long time, might even still be the case.

Oh really? Are you speaking from your personal experience?
Because my personal experience doesn't coincide with yours.

I first saw personal computer at school. It was ZX Spectrum. Maybe it was some Hungarian or Polish made copy, but by design it was copy of ZX Spectrum.
My mom actually worked for the military some time by being programmer of the computing device. It was time when they were large as a building and data was fed to them on cards.
First time I learned computer literacy was at school, and it was IBM 8086. We studied DOS (I think it was PC-DOS) and Basic as programming language.

What soviet own computer system did you mean?

Many aircraft engines, some of which were superior to the engines made in the west for quite a while.
The first satellite.
Laser

Now, how above techs are not military?
And I'm not sure about laser. Wikipedia also says about Hungarian scientist who worked in UK.
And USSR had largest spy network in UK. Precisely because UK traditionally had one of the biggest and most sophisticated spy networks. So it was better to tap on where pipe is the thickest

I'm simply saying that the USSR wasn't completely un-inventive.

And I never wrote that, also. I wrote that USSR technology was focused on military applications, and all other technology was crap. And mostly stolen. And that in sheer number of inventions USSR was far behind USA, while having huge number of state-owned research institutes which were hefty funded.

 

[DC0]

You are saying we should not have any government, meaning there should be no nations

OK, let's get to basics. All definitions as understood in political philosophy.
Country: geographical territory, inhabited by certain nation (or nations), and recognized as belonging to said nation (or nations) by majority of other nations and/or states.
Nation: a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, language, inhabiting a particular state or territory.
State: a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a certain geographical territory.
Government: the group of people with the authority to govern a country or state.

Country, nation, state and government are all different entities. Therefore your assumption should not have any government, meaning there should be no nations is logically incorrect.

What will then stop power hungry sociopaths from forming their own government, because they crave to possess a government, and become despots of their self made nation?

Medicine and kindness. Delivered by strong and determined people in white robes, proficient in helping people with mental deviations.

You are saying that instead of having nations and government we should have power houses that acts as governments who fights each other over land and power.

I never wrote that. Please, take time to read carefully and make genuine effort to understand me.
I'll try to clarify below.

It is in human nature to compete with others for dominance. There are various degrees of enough dominance for each person.
In my dream world there will be no governments, because there will be no states. Countries will still exist, nations will still exist.

But how people will cooperate to make wonderful things?! Easy. There are historical examples of this. Like Новгородское вече in Novgorod city in Russian principalities. Approx. 11th century AD. Novgorod was large and prosperous trading hub, which was governed by peers, which convened regularly on town square to discuss current events and course of actions. Only property owners were allowed to vote on decisions. But as majority of town citizens were property owners, that never was an issue. They selected a manager among themselves, who was responsible before others to act upon made decisions.

And think about it! It was before social networks, crowd funding platforms and blockchain technology were even invented! And they could do it!

Their story ends bad, though. Tsar Ivan the Great has conquered the city and stopped these frivolities.

But we can learn from their mistakes Certain precautions must be taken to prevent military occupation by hostile nation or state.

"Power house" is any entity, competing to expand its market share. Like law enforcing private company (police). Or self regulating professional community of dispute solvers (judges). Or self regulating professional community of healers (doctors). Or fire prevention and fire fighting and building maintenance service companies (firefighters). Or private military companies hired to prevent military occupation by hostile nation or state. Or private contractors chosen by special selection methods to construct and maintain infrastructure in certain regions by people inhabiting or frequently visiting said regions.

 

[Toffer90]

Subject 1.
His sole income is a salary.
His salary is 1000.
10 of it is taken away as progressive income tax.
790 more is taken away as indirect taxation. Which is also hidden in over-inflated prices for goods and services consumed daily. Prices are over-inflated because businesses must pay all sorts of high taxes, as moronic as soda tax.

Subject 1 has 80% of his total income taken away from him by force in various forms of taxation.

Subject 2.
His salary is 10000.
8000 of it is taken away by progressive income tax.
He also has passive income 1000000 from different sources (rent, stock portfolio, business).
He optimizes his taxes in family trust, local business and offshore business.
320000 of this passive income is taken away as all sorts of direct and indirect taxation. Including 20000 spent as indirect taxation for goods and services at over inflated prices consumed daily, plus luxury goods and services consumed on regular basis.

Let's calculate. Total income: 10000+1000000=1010000. Total taxes: 8000+320000 = 328000.

Subject 2 has 32,47% of his total income taken away from him by force in various forms of taxation.

My view:

Subject 1.
Total income 1000.
10 of it is taken away as progressive income tax (10%).

Subject 1 has 990 in yearly income which he may spend how he/she please.

Subject 2.
Income from stock winnings: 1 000 000
Salary 10 000
Income from transferring money from owned business to personal account: 10 000 000 (business must be doing really well to afford this capital loss, perhaps the corporate tax is not high enough....)
Income from rents: 50 000

Total income 11 060 000
5 530 000 of it is taken away as progressive income tax (50%).

Subject 2 has 5 530 000 in yearly income which he may spend how he/she please.

The indirect luxury taxes paid after are the cost of living and is the same for everyone, though some live more expensively than others.
The one with the biggest income is the one who has the biggest opportunity to save money during a year, and that is only natural.
Necessities, like corn products not categorized as dessert or candy, milk products, eggs, vegetables and the like should have zero luxury tax tied to its purchase. What products that qualifies as Necessities, not luxury products, would be different from country to country. Sports cars should have a bigger luxury tax percent than "modest" cars, etc.

Spoiler Info, tax, car, Norway :

If choosing to buy a car in Norway, prepare for a big shock. Cars are expensive, but more so are the taxes put on vehicles. One may have to pay 100 percent of the cost of the car on additional taxes and other costs. Cars are taxed according to the weight of the car and the size of the engine – the larger and more powerful the car, the higher the fees. (does not apply to used cars)

This is of course a simplified example that does not represent any specific country.

Without taxes, the poorest in society would have bigger expenses for health care, education, police protection, lawyer fees, etc. than the poorest segment of society would loose through luxury taxes in a tax based society.
That is, unless something is seriously flawed\unfair with the tax code.

 

[DC0]

If I take your Euro and give nothing in return, it is a criminal exchange.

I should show this to my wife.

Early Man hunted Mammoths without giving Mammoths anything back. The Mammoths protested this by going extinct.

I'm sure it's not how it was. Mammoths protested by making a red paste of early men.
But eventually men prevailed by using cunning and force, and while conducting their mammoth economy irresponsibly early men has ran out of mammoth resource completely.

What you reward you get more of. Many things that are wrong in the West are caused by this: rewarding what is wrong and punishing what is right. The more you reward unemployment by unemployment benefits, the more people will become unemployed. The more you punish labor with taxes, the less people will work. A generous welfare system rewards people for NOT growing food, no matter how many people are hungry.

Bravo!

However, society cannot function without some kind of unequal exchange. Nobody can expect a baby or somebody with a broken back to earn his own livelihood. How much of unequal exchange is necessary and how much to enforce it, is the primary problem in political and economic philosophy.

It became primary problem in political and economic philosophy exclusively for selfish reasons of vile people, who want to cheat the system for their benefit.
How much unequal exchange is necessary should be decided exclusively by people inhabiting certain region. Also, only they should decide how exactly they wish to conduct such exchange. And all this must be in a voluntary manner. It is called charity.

An economy based on equal exchange will be a prosperous one, as everybody will want to participate.

Correction: an economy based on voluntary exchange will be a prosperous one.
It's perfectly fine to have unequal exchange if involved parties agree to it voluntarily. I may wish to have this old car because it reminds me of my youth. And owner of this rusted bucket might take advantage of me and charge a price which is much higher than actual value of the car. But as long as we both voluntarily agree to conduct the deal - it's fine.

 

[DC0]

My view:

Subject 1.
Total income 1000.
10 of it is taken away as progressive income tax (10%).

Subject 1 has 990 in yearly income which he may spend how he/she please.

What about other, indirect taxation methods? Precisely: VAT, import VAT, levies, import duties. How this indirect taxation influences income of Subject 1?

 

[Toffer90]

What about other, indirect taxation methods? Precisely: VAT, import VAT, levies, import duties. How this indirect taxation influences income of Subject 1?

Luxury taxes does not influence income, it influence the cost of living and does so equally for all, I made it clear in my post that I consider it fair.

 

[DC0]

Luxury taxes does not influence income, it influence the cost of living and does so equally for all, I made it clear in my post that I consider it fair.

But I've just shown you in figures that high taxes DO NOT influence the cost of living equally for all
It should be clear that high taxes have more negative impact on low earners.
Oh, I give up.

 

[Toffer90]

But I've just shown you in figures that high taxes DO NOT influence the cost of living equally for all
It should be clear that high taxes have more negative impact on low earners.

Even in a tax-less society, a person with a low salary would spend a higher percentage of his/her income than a person with a higher salary would, at least if they both spend their money reasonably.
The cost of living is the cost of living, and the expenses for the poorest when nothing is paid for by the state, would overshadow the tax a poor person would pay in a tax based society. Unless the tax code is deeply unfair/flawed.
Sure it's unfair for the rich in the moment, but I'm of the opinion that it's worth the price for most of the rich in the long run.

USA has number of murders on steady decline for last 15 years. In absolute figures USA will be first, but now let's remember how many people live in USA and how many people live in Sweden

USA - 2016:

17,250 intentional murders.
population: 322,179,605
rate = 5.35 / 100 000​

Sweden - 2016:

106 intentional murders.
population:9,837,533
rate: 1.08 / 100 000
​

There are over 5 times more murders in the US than in Sweden.

 

[Trantor]

Even in a tax-less society, a person with a low salary would spend a higher percentage of his income than a person with a higher salary would, at least if they both spend their money reasonably.
The cost of living is the cost of living, and the expenses for the poorest when nothing is paid for by the state, would overshadow the tax a poor person would pay in a tax based society. Unless the tax code is deeply unfair/flawed.
Sure it's unfair for the rich in the moment, but I'm of the opinion that it's worth the price for the rich in the long run.

Nope... middle east is tax free and has some of the richest people....yet those folks fly to europe or USA to spend.
also spending of rich is on borrowing not saving. only middleclass spends from savings. any rich person u see who has millions, his debt / companies debt will be more than his income

 

[Toffer90]

Nope... middle east is tax free and has some of the richest people....yet those folks fly to europe or USA to spend.
also spending of rich is on borrowing not saving. only middleclass spends from savings. any rich person u see who has millions, his debt / companies debt will be more than his income

I'm not sure what you are saying no to here.
Are you saying poor people in the middle east save the same percentage of their income in property, stocks and bank accounts as rich people in the middle east does... because it is tax free there...

living on debt is not unique for the rich, I would think it slightly more common among the poor really.
Investments in property or business is, in a way, equal to saving money. It's riskier than investing the money in a bank account but it could yield more income too.
Everyone spends from income, some spend it before they've earned it hoping their income will support it. everyone tries to have some part of their income saved in property, stocks, or accounts. The higher your income is the more money from your income you will be able to save, especially if there is no income tax.

 

[raxo2222]

3) Global warming. As an increase of average surface temperature on planet Earth induced by human activities. Turned out to be a hoax.

Some people want to ignore/deny it due to conflict of interest.
Just like tobacco industry lied about unhealthiness of their product.

What you would do, if you were billionaire and after 10 - 50 years they discovered, that your product is bad for health or environment?
Especially if this whole industry would be 100 billion dollars worth?

Also I'll leave this article here.
Essentially they are like: 4 C (7 F) global warming by 2100? Whatever.

Money and power can be hell of reality warping drug

You stepped on extremely controversial territory (but not controversial in scientific community) with claim like that.
Not that rest of your claims weren't controversial anyway, as anything related to money flow can get controversial quickly.

What do you think about Switzerland or Hong Kong politics?
Those are countries with most free economy.

Nuclear power and nuclear physics also was target of misinformation.
I think it was because of cold war and political corruption.

With widespread nuclear energy (like >50% of world wide electricity production) global warming wouldn't be that much of problem.

 

[DC0]

You stepped on extremely controversial territory (but not controversial in scientific community) with claim like that.

It's not controversial anymore. There are dozens of studies debunking Global Warming hoax.

There is a special study which went through the pain of checking initial claim of "there is a scientific consensus on climate change". Researches actually went through each and every scientist mentioned in the very first study which laid in the foundation of Al Gore's Global Warming hoax. And researches reached and asked the scientists mentioned in that article. And it turned out that article authors intentionally misrepresented what scientists said. It turned out scientists were asked something like "Is there a change in the climate on Earth?" And of course they answered yes, because it is obvious. But consensus among scientists is actually about the fact that main factor contributing to surface temperature change on planet Earth is activity of the Sun. Human activities barely contribute anything, if any.

Also, it turned out that "greenhouse gas" theory is all a blatant lie. Mathematical model was used to propel motion of "We need to limit CO2 emissions!" turned out to be wrong completely. It predicted one results (increase in temperature as CO2 emission increased), actual results were diametrically opposite (decrease in temperature).

Scientists actually say that CO2 is good for vegetation. Plants consume CO2 and grow better. So we enjoy higher crop yields.

Also, Paris Climate Accords are a joke. They are not documents. They are like declarations of commitment to do something in the future. There is a video on YouTube in which a guy says what different countries submitted to Paris Climate Accords. Barely any numbers are seen in them. Only declarations of intentions to reduce emissions of CO2 in the future.

You can find the details in the Internet. If you wish to know the truth.



I barely know anything about Switzerland or Hong Kong politics.

I know Switzerland is ramping up it's defences to keep up it's armed neutrality stance. They are renewing their shelters and hidden caches.

Hong Kong is in a strange political stance with Mainland China.

Nuclear electric power generation was a target of ecological activism.
Actually, there is a video on YouTube made by Greenpeace founder explaining why he left the movement. He says that Greenpeace has turned into extortion group harassing industries by a threat of negative publicity to get money from them.
Also, there is a video on the Internet by one of the German environmentalists titled Why I changed my mind about nuclear power. Tons of stats there how exactly nuclear power is better than reusable energy sources.

I'm not saying we should abandon our quest to transfer to reusable. This would actually be very nice. I'm all in to have my own power plant on my rooftop and in my backyard (if I had any of them - I live in multi apartment building). But we must keep our heads cool and think clearly. And calculate A LOT.

 

[raxo2222]

Nuclear electric power generation was a target of ecological activism.
Actually, there is a video on YouTube made by Greenpeace founder explaining why he left the movement. He says that Greenpeace has turned into extortion group harassing industries by a threat of negative publicity to get money from them.
Also, there is a video on the Internet by one of the German environmentalists titled Why I changed my mind about nuclear power. Tons of stats there how exactly nuclear power is better than reusable energy sources.

I'm not saying we should abandon our quest to transfer to reusable. This would actually be very nice. I'm all in to have my own power plant on my rooftop and in my backyard (if I had any of them - I live in multi apartment building). But we must keep our heads cool and think clearly. And calculate A LOT.

Ironic - nuclear power would save them from climate change or at least from shortage of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are finite- so eventually we would have to switch to nuclear/renewable energy anyway.
All that CO2 would boost plant growth, as its levels would double or triple from current levels.
Then CO2 levels would be stable or even start dropping here, as fossil fuels would be too expensive compared to renewable/nuclear options by then.

Human civilization produces around 15 TW of energy, maybe slightly less or more.
This means 15 000 000 MJ per second is coming from fossil fuels (assuming no other sources).
Lets assume half of it is coming from coal (30 MJ/kg) and gas (55.5 MJ/kg)

This means we are using 15 000 000/((30+55.5)/2) = 351 tons of fossil fuels per second.
That is 11 400 million tons of fossil fuels per year.
My rough calculations were fairly close to actual estimations - 9 800 million tons of carbon in 2014 years.

12 gigatons of C is bound with oxygen 16*2 Gt of O2 - its already burned.
That is its 44 Gt of CO2.
Actual emissions are close to that - actual power consumption is higher than 15 TW.

Atmosphere weights 5 150*10^15 tons.
5.15*10^15 / 44*10^9 = 8,5*10^-6

CO2 levels would be increasing by around 8.5 ppm per year if nothing would touch it.
Actual trend is around 2 - 3 ppm per year - it gets consumed by plants and dissolved in oceans.

Some gases aren't fully transparent in infrared range - same range of radiation, that blackbody with temperature of Earth would emit.
Those effects are easy to detect with thermal camera if you pour pure gases.
Greenhouse gases are called that, because they absorb some infrared radiation and re-emit it in random directions.
What global effects counter that for CO2, H2O and others, that have this property?

So if Earth had atmosphere with nitrogen/oxygen and nothing else - like no water, CO2 and other things average temperature would be same as is now?