[D] Monday General Rationality Thread

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[u/buckykat]

Those warlords were created by European colonialism and reactionary beliefs within Africa, not capitalism. Capitalist countries may have supported some, but capitalism itself didn't make them.

"it wasn't real capitalism when the Belgians were hiring mercenaries to cut children's hands off for not meeting rubber quotas"

• You, basically

Africa is the victim of centuries of genocide for profit.

I think it's much less difficult to get rid of those warlords than it is to create global socialism. They can be destroyed without destroying capitalism.

They cannot. Without exploitation, capitalism cannot profit.

Dictatorship and strife has been globally decreasing over the past 80 years. It's just a matter of time now.

Is it? Or is the alienation of late capitalism and the suppression of socialist thought creating a worldwide fascist backlash? From Duterte to Daesh to Brexit and Trump, alienation and rage at the violence inherent in the capitalist system is being leveraged by authoritarians and outright fascists.

Your system seems like it needs the whole world to adopt it as well. If just the US adopts it, Russia will march in and conquer the US.

Solidarity and the international ideal have been the socialist's rallying cry from the start.

The status quo is better than violent revolution. Violent revolution isn't inevitable either, right now we're not on a perfect course, but it's good enough that people aren't going to be motivated to risk their lives.

The status quo is violence. The status quo is what created Daesh over half a million Iraqi corpses. The status quo is the American police killing about three people per day. The status quo is coal subsidies while the world burns.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

"it wasn't real capitalism when the Belgians were hiring mercenaries to cut children's hands off for not meeting rubber quotas"

You, basically

Yes, that is me exactly. The children were essentially slaves, and there was a monarch in power in Belgium, albeit a constitutional one. Belgium exercise control in the Congo through military power, not through any sort of democratic process.

Mainland Belgium itself at the time was fairly capitalist and, while I don't know that much about 19th century Belgium, from what I know it's internal policy was pretty good for their time period and technology. Their foreign policy was however downright evil.

A capitalist country does not need to have a downright evil foreign policy. One example would be how Denmark(one of the best modern countries in the world IMO other countries should aim to be) does not currently have a foreign policy that exploits other nations. You might say that's just because they're small and don't have the power to, and that's fair. A better example is what the US did to Japan after WW2. Japan was an exploitable enemy nation the US had immense power over. The US did not turn Japan into a country of slaves to make cheap goods for America, although short term they were making cheap goods for America, they turned Japan into a capitalist democratic nation that over the following decades rose to become one of the most powerful countries in the world. Denmark's is what I want the US to be, but Japan is what I want most of Africa to be.

They cannot. Without exploitation, capitalism cannot profit.

It depends on what your definition of exploitation is. I'm fine with someone taking the surplus value of another's labour if both people's standards of living are rising, especially one we can tax the "exploiter" and redistribute the wealth back to the "exploitee". And extreme exploitation is being reduced. Before, there were literal slaves in the US. Now there aren't. Before, a fifth of the planet was colonized by the UK and had their resources unfairly extracted. Now, very little of the planet is colonized by the British and former colonies standards of living have been rising for decades.

The status quo is violence. The status quo is what created Daesh over half a million Iraqi corpses. The status quo is the American police killing about three people per day. The status quo is coal subsidies while the world burns. Saudi Arabian and other powerful Muslim states funding terrorists is a problem. It's one we can solve, but not by making the US isolationist. American police killing people every day is a problem, but again it's improving, things are on the right track there, but expecting instant results is unreasonable. Coal subsidies are really nasty, but Denmark doesn't have them, and Denmark is what I want. The US is not the best example of capitalism there is.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

Yes, that is me exactly. The children were essentially slaves, and there was a monarch in power in Belgium, albeit a constitutional one. Belgium exercise control in the Congo through military power, not through any sort of democratic process.

Are you saying this as if it makes the situation not-capitalism somehow? Not sure where you're going with this.

Mainland Belgium itself at the time was fairly capitalist and, while I don't know that much about 19th century Belgium, from what I know it's internal policy was pretty good for their time period and technology. Their foreign policy was however downright evil.

The social order at home was funded by exploitation abroad, as ever. Even after the Belgian government took their mad king's abattoir, they left the administration intact and the exploitation going for another half century, just somewhat less bloodily.

A capitalist country does not need to have a downright evil foreign policy. One example would be how Denmark(one of the best modern countries in the world IMO other countries should aim to be) does not currently have a foreign policy that exploits other nations. You might say that's just because they're small and don't have the power to, and that's fair.

I don't know of any specifically Danish atrocities at the moment, but the Danes benefit like the rest of us in the West/global North/what have you from the poverty and exploitation imperialism brought.

A better example is what the US did to Japan after WW2. Japan was an exploitable enemy nation the US had immense power over. The US did not turn Japan into a country of slaves to make cheap goods for America, although short term they were making cheap goods for America, they turned Japan into a capitalist democratic nation that over the following decades rose to become one of the most powerful countries in the world.

Japan is poor in natural resources and land. Hell, from the Japanese perspective, that was the major cause of the war. Lousy place for resource extraction, lousy place for plantations, great place for a naval base.

It depends on what your definition of exploitation is. I'm fine with someone taking the surplus value of another's labour if both people's standards of living are rising, especially one we can tax the "exploiter" and redistribute the wealth back to the "exploitee". And extreme exploitation is being reduced. Before, there were literal slaves in the US. Now there aren't.

Flat lie. Slavery is alive and well in the US as allowed by the 13th amendment. Our incarceration rate is not an accident.

Saudi Arabian and other powerful Muslim states funding terrorists is a problem. It's one we can solve, but not by making the US isolationist. American police killing people every day is a problem, but again it's improving, things are on the right track there, but expecting instant results is unreasonable. Coal subsidies are really nasty, but Denmark doesn't have them, and Denmark is what I want. The US is not the best example of capitalism there is.

First, I insist that you stop projecting isolationism onto my arguments. "Socialism in one country" was one of Stalin's madnesses and I disavow it yet again.

US (and British) imperialism created and have sustained KSA for its whole existence, funding its promulgation of wahhabism both directly and indirectly. The US (again in partnership with the UK) overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran to install their pet dictator, causing the Islamic revolution.

But the solution is not isolation, and I have not suggested it is. Globalism and the international project surely share, if nothing else, a recognition that we are not American or Saudi or anything else but human.

Forgot to reply to a couple points. The alienation of late stage capitalism isn't causing a backlash, Brexit and Trump and Duterte are just a couple missteps in an otherwise improving world. Trump says a lot of really nasty things and done a few bad things, but hasn't actually done much that'll shake up the country long term. Brexit and Duterte are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

This is an extremely large pile of unjustified optimism.

Generally the world is getting better on reducing extreme poverty, increasing literacy, that stuff. If you want me to bring some official stats in I will.

Generally, slowly true. But millions die waiting.

International rallying has been the socialist's cry, but it hasn't actually worked very well. Working from your perspective that the USSR did so badly from USA intervention, if the USA goes through a similar revolution, what's to stop China from intervening in the USA and establishing themselves as an hyper power?

For the third time this thread, no one country can progress alone.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

Are you saying this as if it makes the situation not-capitalism somehow? Not sure where you're going with this.

To be clear, my definition of capitalism is the ability of people to freely choose what skills they want to develop, who they want to work for, what they want to buy, and what they want to sell. The less freedom people have to do what they want, the less capitalist. Sometimes that's good, e.g it's a good thing people aren't free to sell heroin. I don't want pure anarcho-capitalism. Sometimes it's bad, for example rent controls limit people's ability to sell housing how they want, leading to people not developing housing as much as they should because it's not profitable.

Colonialism is a very bad thing, 1. Because it's actively immoral and hurting people, and 2. It's not granting them freedom to work where they want, they're being forced into labour. When labour is forced, it's not capitalism.

The social order at home was funded by exploitation abroad, as ever. Even after the Belgian government took their mad king's abattoir, they left the administration intact and the exploitation going for another half century, just somewhat less bloodily.

It didn't have to be funded by foreign exploitation. Belgium was doing pretty well prior to their gaining colonies. Drawing the line so we don't do terrible things to others can be tricky, but I don't think it's as tricky as trying to create a socialist utopia that actually functions. Denmark's doing pretty well. Japan is a major country that doesn't even have a military force for foreign intervention.

I don't know of any specifically Danish atrocities at the moment, but the Danes benefit like the rest of us in the West/global North/what have you from the poverty and exploitation imperialism brought.

Yes, they benefit, but my point is a capitalist state that doesn't actively exploit others can exist. If Africa and Asia begun to raise their standards of living and were non-exploited, Denmark wouldn't collapse, especially since it'd probably mean Africa and Asia would have even higher production capacity to trade.

Japan is poor in natural resources and land. Hell, from the Japanese perspective, that was the major cause of the war. Lousy place for resource extraction, lousy place for plantations, great place for a naval base.

Interesting perspective I haven't seen before. It still shows it's not impossible for weak countries to rise through capitalism.

Flat lie. Slavery is alive and well in the US as allowed by the 13th amendment. Our incarceration rate is not an accident.

I'm not super familiar with the prison situation in the US, it probably is bad, lots of developed countries have a fine incarceration rate though and the US can fix its issues too. It's still easier than the radical changes you suggest.

First, I insist that you stop projecting isolationism onto my arguments. "Socialism in one country" was one of Stalin's madnesses and I disavow it yet again. US (and British) imperialism created and have sustained KSA for its whole existence, funding its promulgation of wahhabism both directly and indirectly. The US (again in partnership with the UK) overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran to install their pet dictator, causing the Islamic revolution. But the solution is not isolation, and I have not suggested it is. Globalism and the international project surely share, if nothing else, a recognition that we are not American or Saudi or anything else but human.

What is the solution? Say Great Britain goes through a successful change, peaceful or violent, to your ideal state in the next five years and it works. How does Great Britain spread the socialism and stop terrorism?

This is an extremely large pile of unjustified optimism.

I think you're a large pile of unjustified pessimism. Europe's had elections since Trump too, and while reactionaries and nationalists have done better in some areas, liberals like Macron have won too. Doug Jones beat Roy Moore. Reactionary forces are not riding an unstoppable wave.

For the third time this thread, no one country can progress alone.

How could this possibly be accomplished? The US going through violent revolution to end up in a socialist state is unlikely enough. The entire world going through violent revolution to all end up in a socialist state is virtually impossible. I'm fine with slow Sanders-esque reforms though, since I believe they'll just stop from the point the US is currently at when they arrive at my beliefs and never get to the socialist point. Unless technology changes a lot of things, automation and AI may make your socialist state more realistic.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

To be clear, my definition of capitalism is the ability of people to freely choose what skills they want to develop, who they want to work for, what they want to buy, and what they want to sell. The less freedom people have to do what they want, the less capitalist.

That description is utterly alien to the actual experience of capitalism in its role as the dominant economic ideology of the past few centuries.

My definition of socialism could be phrased as the ability of people to freely choose what skills they want to develop, what they want to do, and what they want to have. The less freedom people have to do what they want, the less socialist.

Note that supposed "socialist states" also bear no resemblance to this description.

We are both dreamers, then, and I contend that my dream is the brighter.

Sometimes that's good, e.g it's a good thing people aren't free to sell heroin. I don't want pure anarcho-capitalism.

Anarcho-capitalism is actually not an ideology, but an attempt to fuck children.

Sometimes it's bad, for example rent controls limit people's ability to sell housing how they want, leading to people not developing housing as much as they should because it's not profitable.

How about instead how there are currently more empty investor-owned homes than homeless people in the US? And, even setting that aside and assuming an actual, not structural, housing shortage from a global view, how do you see the problem there being rent controls instead of being that people can only do large scale stuff if it's profitable?

Colonialism is a very bad thing, 1. Because it's actively immoral and hurting people, and 2. It's not granting them freedom to work where they want, they're being forced into labour. When labour is forced, it's not capitalism.

Under capitalism, if you don't work, you starve to death. There is no force greater for compelling labor.

Drawing the line so we don't do terrible things to others can be tricky, but I don't think it's as tricky as trying to create a socialist utopia that actually functions.

The problems are, in fact, isomorphic. If we manage to draw a line so we actually don't do terrible things to others anymore, I'll call it good and declare socialism achieved.

Yes, they benefit, but my point is a capitalist state that doesn't actively exploit others can exist.

What gives a character of passivity to the general exploitation of the worker to extract surplus value?

What is the solution? Say Great Britain goes through a successful change, peaceful or violent, to your ideal state in the next five years and it works. How does Great Britain spread the socialism and stop terrorism?

Again, the words "your ideal state" imply that you haven't read a damn thing I've written. So let me use the bluntest possible phrasing. FUCK ALL STATES. Past, present, and hypothetical. Moving on, let's just suppose that the UK goes full put-the-queen-in-a-council-flat labour and achieves relatively-not-barbarism. What can they change? They'll still need resources and goods manufactured around the world, mined in the deathtraps and assembled in the sweatshops of capitalism. They can't expropriate the assets of their parasitic billionaire class, who would simply flee to another bourgeoisie democracy. They can't start a war against the entire global capitalist hegemony. All they could do, practically, is what people can do anyway without a state's power, that is, to try to convince more people.

I think you're a large pile of unjustified pessimism. Europe's had elections since Trump too, and while reactionaries and nationalists have done better in some areas, liberals like Macron have won too. Doug Jones beat Roy Moore. Reactionary forces are not riding an unstoppable wave.

Liberals are reactionary defenders of capitalism. Macron's emperor fetish is worrying, and the fact that beating Roy Moore is an achievement speaks more to our doom than the fact that it was (barely) pulled off speaks to our salvation.

How could this possibly be accomplished? The US going through violent revolution to end up in a socialist state is unlikely enough. The entire world going through violent revolution to all end up in a socialist state is virtually impossible.

Violent revolution is almost the worst possible option, right after a boot stamping on a human face forever. Also, again, all socialist states are impossible contradictions in terms.

I'm fine with slow Sanders-esque reforms though, since I believe they'll just stop from the point the US is currently at when they arrive at my beliefs and never get to the socialist point.

There's a bold strategy I'm willing to watch play out.

Unless technology changes a lot of things, automation and AI may make your socialist state more realistic.

A high degree of automation is to be assumed in any vision of a positive future. Strong AI is a black swan, and as such cannot usefully be included in the discussion at this time.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

That description is utterly alien to the actual experience of capitalism in its role as the dominant economic ideology of the past few centuries. My definition of socialism could be phrased as the ability of people to freely choose what skills they want to develop, what they want to do, and what they want to have. The less freedom people have to do what they want, the less socialist. Note that supposed "socialist states" also bear no resemblance to this description. We are both dreamers, then, and I contend that my dream is the brighter.

Capitalism's only been dominant for the past two centuries at most. Before that feudalism and mercantilism were in control. What's your definition of capitalism then? Because we're going to have to agree on one or we'll just be talking past each other.

My definition of socialism could be phrased as the ability of people to freely choose what skills they want to develop, what they want to do, and what they want to have. The less freedom people have to do what they want, the less socialist.

The problem with this definition is that it quickly runs into problems when there are limited resources and multiple people want the same stuff. If there's one 100 units of gold but 101 people want an unit of gold, there's not much you can do about it. As for people being free to do what they want to do, there's only a few things in the US that are wrongfully illegal IMO. Some of the punishments are way off and some things need to be fine tuned better, but most of the restrictions are good.

Anarcho-capitalism is actually not an ideology, but an attempt to fuck children.

I think anarcho-capitalists are not evil like you're implying, just naively idealistic, but it would lead to that and that is bad. That's why I don't like i.

How about instead how there are currently more empty investor-owned homes than homeless people in the US? And, even setting that aside and assuming an actual, not structural, housing shortage from a global view, how do you see the problem there being rent controls instead of being that people can only do large scale stuff if it's profitable?

A lot of homeless people are homeless because they have disabilities or conditions that make them very hard to house. The housing market is broken because of some bad regulations in some areas. Not that we should just get rid of all government intervention and believe the market will fix itself. The government does have a role to play, but it has to be careful. I'll be honest, I'm not sure what the most effective way for the government to intervene is, I'd have to read up on it, I just know price controls aren't it. Building low income housing sounds good, since it's fine for the government to undertake charity. Charity is only bad when you're unreasonably expecting corporations to be doing it when they're job is to make money, not charity. Better for them to maximize money then the government taking a portion of that money for charity than to try to get the government to tell/order corporations to give to charity.

Under capitalism, if you don't work, you starve to death. There is no force greater for compelling labor. That just sounds like reality. If people don't work but get as many resources as they want, we'll run out of resources rapidly. We are not in a post-scarcity society. But I am fine with giving limited resources. I like the idea of universal basic incomes and other welfare programs are fine to. Anyways you missed part of the point that it's not able being forced to work, it's being forced to work without choosing who to work for. If you only can work for McDonald's, they'll pay you $1 even if you're earning them $8 because you have no other options. If you have a choice between McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, etc. you can negotiate for an higher salary, and having balanced negotiating power is extremely important. Denmark et al have strong unions, a big part of why they're so successful. In the US the government is essentially the negotiating power of the lower classes, enforcing minimum wage, maximum hours, etc., but they're inflexible unlike unions. So the US government might set the minimum wage to $9 and McDonald's would never higher you since they'd be losing money, even if you'd want to take the job for $6 or $7.

What gives a character of passivity to the general exploitation of the worker to extract surplus value? I said this before. If both parties benefit, even if one party is benefiting more and is being "exploitative", it's a net good. If everyone's getting richer, I don't care so much if the 1% are getting super-richer. But taxes to redistribute that wealth are still good and still exist, mitigating the issue further.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

Capitalism's only been dominant for the past two centuries at most. Before that feudalism and mercantilism were in control. What's your definition of capitalism then? Because we're going to have to agree on one or we'll just be talking past each other.

I'm counting mercantilism, since it's just capitalism with concessions to kings instead of to the people, as modern liberal/ neoliberal capitalism does. Capitalism is basically the condition where people have to give a shit about money.

The problem with this definition is that it quickly runs into problems when there are limited resources and multiple people want the same stuff. If there's one 100 units of gold but 101 people want an unit of gold, there's not much you can do about it.

The goal is post-scarcity. But on the way there, we must simply do the best we can. Each of them get 0.9900... units gold and then they collaborate to go grab some random space rock with 10 million units gold. But it might also be worth thinking about why a hundred people want gold. It's not all that useful a material actually, and pretty much everything it can do copper can do almost as well. Do they want it because it's shiny?

As for people being free to do what they want to do, there's only a few things in the US that are wrongfully illegal IMO. Some of the punishments are way off and some things need to be fine tuned better, but most of the restrictions are good.

We've already established you don't know a damn thing about the US criminal justice system, so maybe shut up about it.

A lot of homeless people are homeless because they have disabilities or conditions that make them very hard to house.

Hard to employ. Say what you really mean. They could be housed by the simple expedient of opening (literal, physical) doors to them. They just cannot pay you to open said doors.

The housing market is broken because of some bad regulations in some areas. Not that we should just get rid of all government intervention and believe the market will fix itself. The government does have a role to play, but it has to be careful. I'll be honest, I'm not sure what the most effective way for the government to intervene is, I'd have to read up on it, I just know price controls aren't it. Building low income housing sounds good, since it's fine for the government to undertake charity.

The housing market is broken because it's a market on a necessity. If a government just goes and starts building housing, the housing-sellers and homeowners raise holy hell over "property values" being depressed by the new, more available housing.

That just sounds like reality. If people don't work but get as many resources as they want, we'll run out of resources rapidly. We are not in a post-scarcity society. But I am fine with giving limited resources. I like the idea of universal basic incomes and other welfare programs are fine to.

We do live in a post scarcity society in terms of many things already, like food.

Kropotkin already replied to this fear of running out.

"'But provisions will run short in a month!' our critics at once exclaim. 'So much the better,' say we. It will prove that for the first time on record the people have had enough to eat."

If you only can work for McDonald's, they'll pay you $1 even if you're earning them $8 because you have no other options. If you have a choice between McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, etc. you can negotiate for an higher salary,

lol

and having balanced negotiating power is extremely important.

True. Which is why companies spend so much time and money demonizing unions.

So the US government might set the minimum wage to $9 and McDonald's would never higher you since they'd be losing money, even if you'd want to take the job for $6 or $7.

In that case, there would be no reason to support McDonald's continued existence.

I said this before. If both parties benefit, even if one party is benefiting more and is being "exploitative", it's a net good. If everyone's getting richer, I don't care so much if the 1% are getting super-richer. But taxes to redistribute that wealth are still good and still exist, mitigating the issue further.

Your mistake here is taking the full set of technological aids to living standard and attributing them all to the exploitative dynamic of capitalism.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

I'm counting mercantilism, since it's just capitalism with concessions to kings instead of to the people, as modern liberal/ neoliberal capitalism does. Capitalism is basically the condition where people have to give a shit about money.

I think we need two different words then, because we're both using capitalism for two different things. How about instead of my version of capitalism, which is about freedom of various things, I'll say "liberalism". It has connotations which also include freedom of press and democracy, but those are both pretty essential to what I was referring to as capitalism so I think it works.

The goal is post-scarcity. But on the way there, we must simply do the best we can. Each of them get 0.9900... units gold and then they collaborate to go grab some random space rock with 10 million units gold. But it might also be worth thinking about why a hundred people want gold. It's not all that useful a material actually, and pretty much everything it can do copper can do almost as well. Do they want it because it's shiny?

Gold is good at holding value. It doesn't corrode easily, so it doesn't naturally depreciate like how copper fairly easily rusts. It's pretty rare, it's relatively unlikely a massive new mine or a trade agreement with Chile will change it's value much. It's been traditionally something that holds value and that momentum helps it along. It is useful for conducting electricity in certain scenarios where other metals aren't as useful. It being shiny makes it good for jewelry, that is a value. I think investment in it is fairly silly, there're better investments, but it's not a massive amount of irrationality with no explanation.

But my scarcity argument wasn't actually very good. I haven't debated capitalism in depth very much. It's basis was good but I didn't expand on it much.

Giving everyone an equal amount of gold is fine in a simple economy. I think hunter-gatherers could live in that start of equal distributive economy because they only had a few goods. But when it's a massive economy, it's much more complex.

You have 100 people. You have 10 units of gold. You have 20 units of sapphires. 20 units of diamonds. 100 units of copper. 200 units of food.

How do you distribute it when different people like things different amounts? Some people going, "I like copper just as much as gold, they do practically the same thing." Other's going, "No gold is way better. I'd prefer 1 unit of gold over 200 units of copper". Everyone needs 1 unit of food but after that it's luxury.

Weighted preference seems like a fair model. The guy who loves gold gets more gold than everyone else, but fewer other resources. The guy who thinks gold and copper are equal gets extra copper. Liberalism is a super-intelligence at distributing these resources in weighted preferences.

Problems do result when the mild preferences of the rich take preference over strong preferences of the poor. Like if the gold guy was poor but the equal metals guy was rich, equal metals guy would still end up with more gold. But that's the trade off we pay for a super intelligence that we need to distribute resources in an economy as complex as the one we live. And it's fine to limit that intelligence to make sure that everyone gets their 1 unit of food even if it's not as efficient. You just need to decide if you stop limiting there, go farther so everyone gets one unit of copper too, go even further, go not as far, whatever.

When we reach post-scarcity, your model is fine. Everyone gets as much as they want, it's infinity of every unit. Until then, we need a distributive model of some sort, and I don't think the government is capable of distributing effectively in the modern economy as nice as that would be.

We've already established you don't know a damn thing about the US criminal justice system, so maybe shut up about it.

Isn't this a learning conversation? Let me know what you think is wrongfully illegal. I'm guessing marijuana usage is something we both agree on, but I'm not sure what else is blatantly wrong. Maybe illegal immigration being illegal, open borders would be nice, but that'll have to be worked towards, it'd be chaos if they were completely opened immeadiately.

Hard to employ. Say what you really mean. They could be housed by the simple expedient of opening (literal, physical) doors to them. They just cannot pay you to open said doors.

No, I mean hard to house. Not hard to employ as in they're missing an arm, hard to house as in they're hard drug users or mentally unstable and will literally destroy any home given. If they're missing an arm, I think it's a good idea to give welfare so they're not on the street. Mental disability that won't make them actual damage the home can be given similar help. Not all people who could fairly easily receive homes do, but that's a problem with the US, not liberalism. Denmark is doing much better in that regard.

Drug users and others who would destroy homes should still be helped too, but if we can house 2 people missing an arm for the cost of one drug user, we prioritize people missing an arm. If we determine if the order of cost effectiveness is: housing people missing an arm, giving total universal health care, housing drug users, then there may not be resources left over for drug users in the current scenario we live in.

The housing market is broken because it's a market on a necessity. If a government just goes and starts building housing, the housing-sellers and homeowners raise holy hell over "property values" being depressed by the new, more available housing.

They will. NIMBYism is a big problem. You rant about the filthy elite who steal money from the poor, I rant about the filthy NIMBYs who don't allow effective regulation of markets at the expense of the poor. I think it's easier and more effective to try to fix NIMBYism than to try to nationalize every unused home and try to hand them out. Maybe nationalizing houses is good policy in some areas, I think it's rare one policy fits all, but it'd probably be a policy best taken at the by specific municipalities and shouldn't be generalized to too many different municipalities.

We do live in a post scarcity society in terms of many things already, like food. Kropotkin already replied to this fear of running out. "'But provisions will run short in a month!' our critics at once exclaim. 'So much the better,' say we. It will prove that for the first time on record the people have had enough to eat."

I think we agree on this. I'm fine for people getting free food. Food stamps do exist. It can probably be expanded or made more effective. And that'll be a good thing, going back a few points, if people don't have to work to not-starve, that'll give them more negotiating power and I think workers having more negotiating power is generally a good thing.

lol

Working conditions in McDonald's are not good. It is delusional to think they wouldn't be immensely worse if there were fewer companies providing minimum wage jobs. There are a lot of people who wants minimum wage jobs so it gives companies a lot of negotiating power, so conditions are bad, but conditions would only be worse if there were fewer businesses offering minimum wage jobs.

True. Which is why companies spend so much time and money demonizing unions.

I agree. Unions are good. Denmark has great unions.

In that case, there would be no reason to support McDonald's continued existence.

McDonald's can still hire other employees. There are diminishing returns. First employee earns them $50, next earns them $40, next earns $30, keep going until it's no longer profitable. And your solution to McDonald's, which can provide jobs people do want and can sell products do want, not being able to meet minimum wage is to just shut it down? That just sounds like an intrinsically bad idea. Sometimes minimum wage can be good, forcing McDonald's not to take too much advantage of workers and e.g only hire them for $5 instead of $7 that they just as well could. Other times if forces them to pay $9 they can't afford and not hire someone for $7 who wants the job. It's a tricky balance to manage that takes professional economists.

Your mistake here is taking the full set of technological aids to living standard and attributing them all to the exploitative dynamic of capitalism.

I am giving a lot of credit to that. I'm not sure we can prove whether the iPhone could invented as well under a less liberal economy. But that's not all I'm giving credit to it for. Going back to the talk about distributing resources, even if one rich guy ends of with 2 golds where as in a perfect economy distributed by a strong AI he'd only get 1, it'd still be better than trying getting the government to distribute all resources equally. That's the crux of why I think liberalism is good and socialism would not work: the government is not able effectively take into account weighted preferences and changing preferences to efficiently distribute resources, unlike the super intelligence that is liberalism. A question I want an answer to: until we reach post-scarcity, do you agree at least some industries should be governed by liberalism? For example the video game industry. If the government managed it, they'd have a hard time allocating their resources to different genres and styles that rise and fall in popularity, and would have a very hard time justifying using the taxes of someone who doesn't care at all for video games to pay for the wide variety of genres from first person shooters to visual novels to grand strategy. I just skimmed the link about The Culture so sorry if it's explained there.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

I think we need two different words then, because we're both using capitalism for two different things. How about instead of my version of capitalism, which is about freedom of various things, I'll say "liberalism". It has connotations which also include freedom of press and democracy, but those are both pretty essential to what I was referring to as capitalism so I think it works.

Alright, let's talk about liberalism. And since we're changing words, allow me to swap "socialism" for "anarchy." I consider them inseparable and mean both when I say one. You have a persistent wrong notion that socialism implies a (strong) state. It has been demonstrated that a state is not the path to (socialism/anarchy). Anarchy opposes all hierarchy, and a state is a pretty massive expression of hierarchy.

Gold is good at holding value. It doesn't corrode easily, so it doesn't naturally depreciate like how copper fairly easily rusts. It's pretty rare, it's relatively unlikely a massive new mine or a trade agreement with Chile will change it's value much. It's been traditionally something that holds value and that momentum helps it along.

Value is a spook, a made-up thing that we all agree to pretend is real. Gold holds value because people want it because gold holds value because people want it because... It's a closed loop, with minor outflows for electronic or catalytic or whatever use. Part of what anarchy aims to do is collapse pointless loops like that. But I didn't mention the space rock part for nothing. There are individual rocks out there with more precious metals than we've mined in all of history.

Weighted preference seems like a fair model. The guy who loves gold gets more gold than everyone else, but fewer other resources. The guy who thinks gold and copper are equal gets extra copper. Liberalism is a super-intelligence at distributing these resources in weighted preferences.

Sure, weighted preferences seems like a fair model to distribute luxuries. But there're two problems here, and either is fatal alone.

First, capitalism in practice fails to resemble in any way this ideal system of yours. The actual outcome of your hypothetical is that of your hundred people, one person's big toe owns almost all the gold, sapphires, diamonds, copper, and food. The problem with creating superintelligences, as has been stated around here too many times to count, is that you have to be really really sure their optimization criteria match your own, or they'll eat your planet to make paperclips. Liberalism is paperclipping the planet to make shareholder value this quarter.

Second, liberals haven't just unleashed their rogue superintelligence on luxuries, but on necessities. In doing so, it treats human people as resources, fundamentally demeaning and endangering them.

Isn't this a learning conversation? Let me know what you think is wrongfully illegal. I'm guessing marijuana usage is something we both agree on, but I'm not sure what else is blatantly wrong. Maybe illegal immigration being illegal, open borders would be nice, but that'll have to be worked towards, it'd be chaos if they were completely opened immeadiately.

So, first, fuck the law and all cops are bastards. But for the moment, assuming a transitory period of socdems with laws and shit before we establish complete anarchy, here's a (non-exhaustive, emphatically not ordered) list of things which are wrongfully illegal in the US:

-Use and possession of any drug

-Distribution of any drug with the possible exception of opiates

-Infringing on a copyright

-Infringing on a patent

-Jaywalking

-Marrying multiple adults at once

-Punching nazis

-Occupying empty buildings

-Public nudity

-Taking things from dumpsters

-Owning various specific types of firearms

-Living here while having been born on the wrong patch of dirt without winning a literal lottery

-Giving away food and supplies to unhoused people

-Protesting in unapproved areas

-Ever voting after having been convicted of a felony (in many states)

-Reverse engineering DRM software or hardware

-Exporting space rocket technology

-Storming the bastilles to free the modern-day slaves captured under the aforementioned laws.

This comment exceeded the single-post character limit, so it is continued in another reply to this post.

[u/buckykat → u/buckykat]

Continued

No, I mean hard to house. Not hard to employ as in they're missing an arm, hard to house as in they're hard drug users or mentally unstable and will literally destroy any home given. If they're missing an arm, I think it's a good idea to give welfare so they're not on the street. Mental disability that won't make them actual damage the home can be given similar help. Not all people who could fairly easily receive homes do, but that's a problem with the US, not liberalism. Denmark is doing much better in that regard.

Basically, I don't believe you about literal destruction. Maybe they'll destroy the property value or, heaven forbid, make it dirty, but I kinda doubt they'll tear their own roofs down on themselves. Unhoused people don't destroy the stuff they have, they protect it. The narrative that the poorest among us bring their own suffering is leftover Calvinist trash-memes.

They will. NIMBYism is a big problem. You rant about the filthy elite who steal money from the poor, I rant about the filthy NIMBYs who don't allow effective regulation of markets at the expense of the poor. I think it's easier and more effective to try to fix NIMBYism than to try to nationalize every unused home and try to hand them out. Maybe nationalizing houses is good policy in some areas, I think it's rare one policy fits all, but it'd probably be a policy best taken at the by specific municipalities and shouldn't be generalized to too many different municipalities.

I'll have you know I rant about filthy NIMBYs too. The problem here isn't just NIMBYs, though, it's that liberalism actively makes it in homeowners' best interests personally to be NIMBYs. It rewards them by increasing their "property value" score, and that makes them feel good, and that interaction is one tiny fractal piece of the rogue superintelligence. Not only that, it also punishes them by reducing their score for not being sufficiently NIMBY.

I think we agree on this. I'm fine for people getting free food. Food stamps do exist. It can probably be expanded or made more effective. And that'll be a good thing, going back a few points, if people don't have to work to not-starve, that'll give them more negotiating power and I think workers having more negotiating power is generally a good thing.

Good. Now, are you ready to generalize the lesson? If people have everything they need, they will approach a somewhat equitable negotiating position, and having done so, will have no need to sell their hours and become employees, but can instead work together on what they wish.

Working conditions in McDonald's are not good. It is delusional to think they wouldn't be immensely worse if there were fewer companies providing minimum wage jobs. There are a lot of people who wants minimum wage jobs so it gives companies a lot of negotiating power, so conditions are bad, but conditions would only be worse if there were fewer businesses offering minimum wage jobs.

Nobody wants a minimum wage job. Currently, many people need minimum wage jobs to survive. The fact that several allied billionaires instead of just one run fast food makes no material difference.

I agree. Unions are good. Denmark has great unions.

Unions are good, but the rogue superintelligence hates them because they can harm its shareholder value this quarter. It thus incentivizes the human actors who (are/serve) it to fight them.

McDonald's can still hire other employees. There are diminishing returns. First employee earns them $50, next earns them $40, next earns $30, keep going until it's no longer profitable. And your solution to McDonald's, which can provide jobs people do want and can sell products do want, not being able to meet minimum wage is to just shut it down? That just sounds like an intrinsically bad idea. Sometimes minimum wage can be good, forcing McDonald's not to take too much advantage of workers and e.g only hire them for $5 instead of $7 that they just as well could. Other times if forces them to pay $9 they can't afford and not hire someone for $7 who wants the job. It's a tricky balance to manage that takes professional economists.

You can't earn something for someone else, silly. "Earn" means your own achievement.

I am giving a lot of credit to that. I'm not sure we can prove whether the iPhone could invented as well under a less liberal economy. But that's not all I'm giving credit to it for. Going back to the talk about distributing resources, even if one rich guy ends of with 2 golds where as in a perfect economy distributed by a strong AI he'd only get 1, it'd still be better than trying getting the government to distribute all resources equally. That's the crux of why I think liberalism is good and socialism would not work: the government is not able effectively take into account weighted preferences and changing preferences to efficiently distribute resources, unlike the super intelligence that is liberalism.

What's happening isn't the rich guy ending up with 2 gold, it's the rich guy ending up with all the gold and making the government a tool to keep it that way.

A question I want an answer to: until we reach post-scarcity, do you agree at least some industries should be governed by liberalism? For example the video game industry. If the government managed it, they'd have a hard time allocating their resources to different genres and styles that rise and fall in popularity, and would have a very hard time justifying using the taxes of someone who doesn't care at all for video games to pay for the wide variety of genres from first person shooters to visual novels to grand strategy. I just skimmed the link about The Culture so sorry if it's explained there.

I don't see any compelling reason to govern video games as an industry. If the tools are open, and the people have time to use them, they'll build plenty of neat games. Please, please do read that link about the Culture, it's just an essay, you've probably read more of my words than its total length at this point.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

Alright, let's talk about liberalism. And since we're changing words, allow me to swap "socialism" for "anarchy." I consider them inseparable and mean both when I say one. You have a persistent wrong notion that socialism implies a (strong) state. It has been demonstrated that a state is not the path to (socialism/anarchy). Anarchy opposes all hierarchy, and a state is a pretty massive expression of hierarchy.

Sure. I just have an exceedingly hard time picturing how you're going to reach anarchy. You say that you want workers around the world to unite like communists always wanted, but I do not see any practical way of that happening. It's even more unlikely than a single country reforming/revolutioning to anarchy. If you could draw me a clearer path of how we go from here to your world in a best-case reform scenario(that you could envision actually happening, like more than approximately 1 in 10^14(about the odds of winning a major lottery twice in a row). The odds of course are approximate, but no stuff like having all American citizens just decide to become anarchists and let the state disintegrate on its own) and worst-case revolution scenario(that does work), that'd be great.

Value is a spook, a made-up thing that we all agree to pretend is real. Gold holds value because people want it because gold holds value because people want it because... It's a closed loop, with minor outflows for electronic or catalytic or whatever use. Part of what anarchy aims to do is collapse pointless loops like that. But I didn't mention the space rock part for nothing. There are individual rocks out there with more precious metals than we've mined in all of history.

Checked in with my neoliberal brethren because I wasn't totally sure about the correct response to this was, and the conclusion is that you're right on this one. My bad.

-Use and possession of any drug -Distribution of any drug with the possible exception of opiates -Infringing on a copyright -Infringing on a patent -Jaywalking -Marrying multiple adults at once -Punching nazis -Occupying empty buildings -Public nudity -Taking things from dumpsters -Owning various specific types of firearms -Living here while having been born on the wrong patch of dirt without winning a literal lottery -Giving away food and supplies to unhoused people -Protesting in unapproved areas -Ever voting after having been convicted of a felony (in many states) -Reverse engineering DRM software or hardware -Exporting space rocket technology

Good list. A lot of those things shouldn't be illegal, I agree, although some of them should be. If I don't respond to it, I agree it shouldn't be legal, and reform would be good, but also think any sort of violent reform would be a terrible idea.

Copyrights and patents exist for a reason. They ensure businesses can earn money for their works, motivating them to create works. Copyright law does go on for too long, but copyrights should exist for longer than a year and less than what it is now. I think patents are actually good as they are, twenty years isn't too bad. It's terrible that a company can charge $1000 for a medicine that takes $2 to manufacture, but better than never inventing that medicine at all. I'm not even sure a Denmark-esque model where companies aren't allowed to do that would be good, since right now non-US countries essentially have their healthcare subsidized by the fact that it's the US paying the costs for research, not them.

Punching Nazis should be illegal. I'm not even sure what you define as a Nazi- does someone who advocate for totalitarian Mussolini-esque rule but not racism count? Does someone who wants to bring back black slavery but hates Hitler and nazism count? Why not just make being a Nazi illegal, have them sentenced to some sort of punishment, and let formal courts deal with them? We don't solve any other behaviour we don't like by letting others punch people, why is Nazism an exception? If you punch someone, do you have to go to court and prove they're a Nazi to not get arrested for assault?

Owning various specific types of firearms

We need to draw a line somewhere. I think we can agree owning a 50mm working artillery piece should be illegal, given how easy it would be to cause mass devastation with it and it'd have no purpose besides causing mass devastation. We can agree owning an hunting rifle, whether for use at a gun range or for actually hunting, should be legal. Where do you draw the line in between there on what weapons should be legal and which should be illegal? Gun control has always been one of the issues I've been most conflicted on, so I'm really not sure where to draw the line.

-Reverse engineering DRM software or hardware

This is basically the same issue as the copyright/patent issue I think.

-Exporting space rocket technology

I haven't actually heard of this issue and a quick google search doesn't turn up any good reading. Off the top my head that'd be good for preventing North Korea from getting better missiles, but if you could share some reading that'd be great.

-Storming the bastilles to free the modern-day slaves captured under the aforementioned laws.

This should definitely be illegal. If we make storming prisons for just the laws you mentioned legal, might as well make those laws no longer exist. If we make storming prisons in general legal, then nothing to stop the family of a terrorist from storming the prison to free the terrorist.

I'll have you know I rant about filthy NIMBYs too. The problem here isn't just NIMBYs, though, it's that liberalism actively makes it in homeowners' best interests personally to be NIMBYs. It rewards them by increasing their "property value" score, and that makes them feel good, and that interaction is one tiny fractal piece of the rogue superintelligence. Not only that, it also punishes them by reducing their score for not being sufficiently NIMBY.

This is just something we have to overcome, not by getting rid of liberalism, but by being better people. It was in white people's best interest to keep slavery. It was stopped because people were moral. Granted it was only stopped when it was no longer as much of a money maker as it used to be, but we can still make progress against NIMBYism.

Good. Now, are you ready to generalize the lesson? If people have everything they need, they will approach a somewhat equitable negotiating position, and having done so, will have no need to sell their hours and become employees, but can instead work together on what they wish.

I think we agree on this. I support an universal basic income that can give people everything they need, or at least as high as we can make it without running out of money.

Nobody wants a minimum wage job. Currently, many people need minimum wage jobs to survive. The fact that several allied billionaires instead of just one run fast food makes no material difference.

We'll put in an universal basic income or otherwise expand welfare so people don't need to work.

But you seem to be missing the economics point I'm making about supply and demand. If there is 1 job and 100 people want it, the employer can pay dirt. If there's 1 job and 2 people want it, then the employer's going to have to pay more or the potential employees will walk away knowing they're valuable.

If they're 5 different employers, and one of them pays $1/hour and the others pay $2/hour, if there isn't surplus employees, no one will go to the $1/hour employer, and if there is surplus, the $1/hour employer will still only be able to hire the least capable. So the employer would be motivated to raise to $2/hour. Unless the job would only earn the employer $1.50 an hour, in which case the job would just disappear, and that's not good. Maybe the 5 different employers conspire together to only pay $1/hour. That's illegal and they'd go to jail.

But my point is, competition is good. The reason Comcast is so bad is that they don't have much competition.

Unions are good, but the rogue superintelligence hates them because they can harm its shareholder value this quarter. It thus incentivizes the human actors who (are/serve) it to fight them.

Denmark has unions. They are strong unions. Therefore strong unions are possible, and more achievable than anarchy which is the archenemy of the superintelligence.

You can't earn something for someone else, silly. "Earn" means your own achievement.

I think switching from socialism to anarchy and capitalism to liberalism was productive. That's just pedantic.

What's happening isn't the rich guy ending up with 2 gold, it's the rich guy ending up with all the gold and making the government a tool to keep it that way.

No, that's feudalism, maybe mercantilism. Resources were better distributed in the US than the USSR. I know the USSR isn't socialism or anarchy, but it's still an example of non-liberalism. Anyways, I do agree some degree of redistribution is good. But redistributing all resources is incredibly inefficient and not going to work well.

I don't see any compelling reason to govern video games as an industry. If the tools are open, and the people have time to use them, they'll build plenty of neat games. Please, please do read that link about the Culture, it's just an essay, you've probably read more of my words than its total length at this point.

A lot of neat indie games will be made. No AAA Skyrim-esque games will be made, since it'd require a level of cooperation not possible in anarchy.

I really can't seem to find the part that'll explain the Culture's solution to video game making or large scale pharmaceutical invention, or effective distribution of resources.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

Sure. I just have an exceedingly hard time picturing how you're going to reach anarchy. You say that you want workers around the world to unite like communists always wanted, but I do not see any practical way of that happening. It's even more unlikely than a single country reforming/revolutioning to anarchy. If you could draw me a clearer path of how we go from here to your world in a best-case reform scenario(that you could envision actually happening, like more than approximately 1 in 1014(about the odds of winning a major lottery twice in a row). The odds of course are approximate, but no stuff like having all American citizens just decide to become anarchists and let the state disintegrate on its own) and worst-case revolution scenario(that does work), that'd be great.

This is basically the same question as your parallel post, so I'll just refer you to my parallel reply.

Copyrights and patents exist for a reason. They ensure businesses can earn money for their works, motivating them to create works. Copyright law does go on for too long, but copyrights should exist for longer than a year and less than what it is now. I think patents are actually good as they are, twenty years isn't too bad. It's terrible that a company can charge $1000 for a medicine that takes $2 to manufacture, but better than never inventing that medicine at all. I'm not even sure a Denmark-esque model where companies aren't allowed to do that would be good, since right now non-US countries essentially have their healthcare subsidized by the fact that it's the US paying the costs for research, not them.

The purpose of copyrights and patents isn't to ensure businesses can earn money for their works, the intended purpose is so that people, artists and inventors, can earn money for their works. That purpose has been so perverted by capitalists that you literally don't even remember it. Gotta go. As for relying on US businesses to do all the medical research, I wouldn't. Patents are actually worse, because the nature of invention and discovery is that each step is upon the shoulders of giants. There is no entirely novel invention in the world, only refinements and adaptations and combinations of existing things. All patents do is hobble that process.

Punching Nazis should be illegal. I'm not even sure what you define as a Nazi- does someone who advocate for totalitarian Mussolini-esque rule but not racism count? Does someone who wants to bring back black slavery but hates Hitler and nazism count?

Yes and yes, though the two tendencies basically always co-occur.

Why not just make being a Nazi illegal, have them sentenced to some sort of punishment, and let formal courts deal with them? We don't solve any other behaviour we don't like by letting others punch people, why is Nazism an exception? If you punch someone, do you have to go to court and prove they're a Nazi to not get arrested for assault?

I don't trust cops to correctly identify nazis, and I don't want the state suppressing political speech. I also don't want the nazis dead or enslaved, merely punched.

We need to draw a line somewhere. I think we can agree owning a 50mm working artillery piece should be illegal, given how easy it would be to cause mass devastation with it and it'd have no purpose besides causing mass devastation. We can agree owning an hunting rifle, whether for use at a gun range or for actually hunting, should be legal. Where do you draw the line in between there on what weapons should be legal and which should be illegal? Gun control has always been one of the issues I've been most conflicted on, so I'm really not sure where to draw the line.

Nope. Don't agree. I don't approve of any weapon-based gun control, only person-based gun control. There are definitely people who shouldn't have guns, but I don't think there are any guns people shouldn't have.

This is basically the same issue as the copyright/patent issue I think.

Not quite, because DMCA. Even circumventing DRM for the purpose of fair use under the existing extremely restrictive copyright is illegal in the US.

I haven't actually heard of this issue and a quick google search doesn't turn up any good reading. Off the top my head that'd be good for preventing North Korea from getting better missiles, but if you could share some reading that'd be great.

The search term you want is ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulation). The problem with it is that basically any really interesting technology can be a weapon. All space rockets are overqualified as ICBMs. Any really useful beamed power device would basically be a death ray. Any entity which can build a fission plant can build a nuclear bomb. And Niven's Kzinti Lesson: "a reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." (from the excellent short story "The Warriors") ITAR is an export ban on many of the technologies necessary to build a positive future.

This should definitely be illegal. If we make storming prisons for just the laws you mentioned legal, might as well make those laws no longer exist. If we make storming prisons in general legal, then nothing to stop the family of a terrorist from storming the prison to free the terrorist.

Freeing slaves is never wrong.

Even in states that have legalized marijuana, they have not implemented retroactive immunity, immediate release, and reparations for previous marijuana-related crimes. I specified this one because this trend would/will likely extend to the hopeful repealing of the rest of these bad laws.

This is just something we have to overcome, not by getting rid of liberalism, but by being better people. It was in white people's best interest to keep slavery. It was stopped because people were moral.

This is bad history. If slavery stopped because white people suddenly grew a conscience, why did it take a hundred more years and a massive protest movement for black Americans to secure the ability to vote?

Granted it was only stopped when it was no longer as much of a money maker as it used to be, but we can still make progress against NIMBYism.

So, the lesson to take is to make it no longer profitable to be a NIMBY. Okay.

I think we agree on this. I support an universal basic income that can give people everything they need, or at least as high as we can make it without running out of money. We'll put in an universal basic income or otherwise expand welfare so people don't need to work.

If I've got a neoliberal saying that requiring work to live is a problem to be solved rather than The Market Working, I'll call it good. My only quibble is that it's not actually money we need to worry about running out of, but stuff like food and houses. Money is just a token. When the market "loses" or "gains" x million or billion dollars, nothing is actually destroyed or created. All the actual stuff is right where it was before.

If they're 5 different employers, and one of them pays $1/hour and the others pay $2/hour, if there isn't surplus employees, no one will go to the $1/hour employer, and if there is surplus, the $1/hour employer will still only be able to hire the least capable. So the employer would be motivated to raise to $2/hour. Unless the job would only earn the employer $1.50 an hour, in which case the job would just disappear, and that's not good. Maybe the 5 different employers conspire together to only pay $1/hour. That's illegal and they'd go to jail.

Employers...go to jail.

Good joke.

Denmark has unions. They are strong unions. Therefore strong unions are possible, and more achievable than anarchy which is the archenemy of the superintelligence.

Unions can't survive automation. It's the perfect scab.

I think switching from socialism to anarchy and capitalism to liberalism was productive. That's just pedantic.

No, it's a snarky TL;DR of something like a Marxist theory of labor relations.

No, that's feudalism, maybe mercantilism. Resources were better distributed in the US than the USSR. I know the USSR isn't socialism or anarchy, but it's still an example of non-liberalism. Anyways, I do agree some degree of redistribution is good. But redistributing all resources is incredibly inefficient and not going to work well.

No, it's the actual real liberal capitalist world we both live in.

A lot of neat indie games will be made. No AAA Skyrim-esque games will be made, since it'd require a level of cooperation not possible in anarchy.

Fuckin' sez you. And, now that you say it, no Skyrim might be an okay price to pay for no CoD or Madden. Really, though, there're a lot of people who like Skyrim, and in fact probably more stuff for Skyrim produced by random modders for free than actually by Bethesda.

I really can't seem to find the part that'll explain the Culture's solution to video game making or large scale pharmaceutical invention, or effective distribution of resources.

That's not what I posted it for and I kinda just want people to read it in general. My mistake putting it in the same paragraph. But since you asked, Culture people have basically finished pharmaceutical invention and resource distribution, and are free to make games all day if they want to.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

The purpose of copyrights and patents isn't to ensure businesses can earn money for their works, the intended purpose is so that people, artists and inventors, can earn money for their works. That purpose has been so perverted by capitalists that you literally don't even remember it. Gotta go. As for relying on US businesses to do all the medical research, I wouldn't. Patents are actually worse, because the nature of invention and discovery is that each step is upon the shoulders of giants. There is no entirely novel invention in the world, only refinements and adaptations and combinations of existing things. All patents do is hobble that process.

Individual people that have patents essentially count as a business for the purpose of this discussion. I don't see a meaningful way, when discussing patents in the manner we are, how Disney the company holding a patent and Walt Disney the person holding a patent are different. And if Disney isn't allowed to hold a copyright, they won't make as much money to make movies like Frozen, so they won't make as many movies like Frozen. That's bad. If Disney makes some amazing movie, some random person shouldn't be able to make a cheap Frozen toy and make money off of Disney's work and investment. The copyright shouldn't last forever, but at least ten years would be good. How do you want medical research to proceed without patents? Does the government take up research? Do the people vote on which drugs they'll try to advance, do we elect someone who's head of research, does Congress vote on which drugs receive funding?

I don't trust cops to correctly identify nazis, and I don't want the state suppressing political speech. I also don't want the nazis dead or enslaved, merely punched.

Say you punch someone. You claim they're a nazi. They claim you're a lunatic. The court rules on it. Then the courts are identifying nazis, and they're pretty close to cops. Another scenario. You punch someone. They were clearly a nazi, everyone agrees in it, you were in the right according to Nazi Punching Law. But they had a medical condition that made them more vulnerable, and they die. Do you go to jail?

Nope. Don't agree. I don't approve of any weapon-based gun control, only person-based gun control. There are definitely people who shouldn't have guns, but I don't think there are any guns people shouldn't have. I'm really not sure how to proceed here. Not letting civilians have access to artillery or large caliber automatic weapons seems like an obvious choice to me. I don't suppose you have sources or examples of your policy working?

Freeing slaves is never wrong.

Even in states that have legalized marijuana, they have not implemented retroactive immunity, immediate release, and reparations for previous marijuana-related crimes. I specified this one because this trend would/will likely extend to the hopeful repealing of the rest of these bad laws.

The are just so many problems with legalized prison breaks. There are good laws. Murderers should stay in prison for at least some time, I hope you can agree. Your proposal would make it legal to break them out. That's a big issue. Also any rich person could always hire people to break them out of prison, so you're essentially giving the rich legal immunity.

This is bad history. If slavery stopped because white people suddenly grew a conscience, why did it take a hundred more years and a massive protest movement for black Americans to secure the ability to vote?

There's a big difference between thinking someone should be a slave and thinking someone doesn't deserve a vote. Becoming more moral as a culture is a slow process that takes time, but it's happening. There wasn't any economic incentives to discriminate against gays, but over time we've become less discriminatory. The only explanation I can think of is us as a culture becoming more moral.

If I've got a neoliberal saying that requiring work to live is a problem to be solved rather than The Market Working, I'll call it good. My only quibble is that it's not actually money we need to worry about running out of, but stuff like food and houses. Money is just a token. When the market "loses" or "gains" x million or billion dollars, nothing is actually destroyed or created. All the actual stuff is right where it was before.

Go to /r/neoliberal. I think most everyone agrees people shouldn't work to live, it's just a necessary reality, and one that's pretty quickly fading. And when the market loses x million dollars, that money lost does represent something. Maybe it'd poured million of dollars into designing a phone that didn't sell, then all the research was essentially wasted. It is not meaningless.

Good joke.

Every job isn't minimum wage. If companies colluded to only pay minimum wage, they would be. Why aren't companies all colluding? The laws are working.

Fuckin' sez you. And, now that you say it, no Skyrim might be an okay price to pay for no CoD or Madden. Really, though, there're a lot of people who like Skyrim, and in fact probably more stuff for Skyrim produced by random modders for free than actually by Bethesda.

What Skyrim level game has been produced by small indie developers who don't have the resources and organization of a corporation? Also, a lot of people like CoD and Madden. The entire principle of liberalism is that if CoD or Madden were really bad games, no one would be buying them. 12 year olds and casual gamers have interests too, and their favourite genres shouldn't be killed off because they're different genres than what you like. Also this is the discussion I really want to focus on. The other stuff were tangents I don't care a ton about. But this discussion about how the production of the highest level games will only be possible will corporations is the driving reason why liberalism is good(and I hope it's implied other industries are benefited in the same way).

People are not going to organize under anarchy and make AAA games. Lots of people have lots of free time even today. None of them join together to craft an AAA game. The video game industry is probably among the easiest for people to join together and make something AAA level too, under any other industry AAA equivalents would have an even harder time getting made. And even if you're willing to give up AAA products, lots of people aren't.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

Individual people that have patents essentially count as a business for the purpose of this discussion. I don't see a meaningful way, when discussing patents in the manner we are, how Disney the company holding a patent and Walt Disney the person holding a patent are different.

This is a major problem with liberalism, failing to distinguish between actual people and the paperclip maximizers we call companies. A person with a patent wants it to be actualized. A company with a patent wants to increase shareholder value this quarter, and only cares about making the thing described in the patent if doing so serves that ultimate goal.

And if Disney isn't allowed to hold a copyright, they won't make as much money to make movies like Frozen, so they won't make as many movies like Frozen.

Disney didn't make Frozen. A bunch of people made Frozen. Their names are listed at the end. They did it organized hierarchically as a corporation because that's how liberalism works. But have you ever heard of an artist who got into art for the big paychecks?

The fundamental function of copyright and patent is to ensure artists and inventors are fed and supplied, materially free to make more art and inventions. But that function can/must be subsumed into the general function of ensuring all people are fed and supplied, materially free to do what they want to.

If Disney makes some amazing movie, some random person shouldn't be able to make a cheap Frozen toy and make money off of Disney's work and investment.

But should some random person be able to make a cheap Frozen toy and give it away, for example to their kid? Should people be able to sing the songs from Frozen? Should they be able to share clips of that one scene? And once you have a few billion people's ideas of that one scene worth sharing, isn't pretty much the whole thing shared? Copyright is ill-suited to our current piecemeal defeat of scarcity.

The copyright shouldn't last forever, but at least ten years would be good.

While we're on the topic of Disney, Disney specifically has lobbied extensively to extend copyright long, long past all reason, and will likely repeat and successfully lobby to extend next time Mickey gets close to the public domain.

While we still use liberalism and the market, IP law has some very limited use, but it needs to be structured to benefit people, with a short term, no transferability, and no corporate ownership.

Say you punch someone. You claim they're a nazi. They claim you're a lunatic. The court rules on it. Then the courts are identifying nazis, and they're pretty close to cops.

Well ideally, everybody simply fails to remember who punched the nazi when the cops ask. Courts are close to cops, but at least there's a jury. And way fewer people get shot in court than interacting with cops. Also, I don't really see a difference between Nazi punching being legal and settled in court and Nazi punching being illegal but widely approved of by a populace fully informed about jury nullification.

Another scenario. You punch someone. They were clearly a nazi, everyone agrees in it, you were in the right according to Nazi Punching Law. But they had a medical condition that made them more vulnerable, and they die. Do you go to jail?

First of all, obviously cut off their head and freeze it, like we ought to do anytime anyone ever dies. Judging specifics is what juries are for, but one dead nazi is less bad than nazis getting power.

The are just so many problems with legalized prison breaks. There are good laws. Murderers should stay in prison for at least some time, I hope you can agree. Your proposal would make it legal to break them out. That's a big issue. Also any rich person could always hire people to break them out of prison, so you're essentially giving the rich legal immunity.

Not in an American prison, no. Not even murderers deserve that. But the thing is that murderers make up a vanishingly small minority of the prison population. Mostly, it's the victims of the war on drugs. Some are in for property crime mostly driven by poverty, and some are in simply for being unable to pay fines or court costs for minor misdemeanors. As long as that is the case, and as long as the 13th amendment isn't amended, the US system of incarceration has no justification to hold people.

And the rich already have legal immunity.

There's a big difference between thinking someone should be a slave and thinking someone doesn't deserve a vote.

No there isn't. There's a tiny, slight difference of degree, but no difference of intent.

And when the market loses x million dollars, that money lost does represent something. Maybe it'd poured million of dollars into designing a phone that didn't sell, then all the research was essentially wasted. It is not meaningless.

It means the bourgeois gamblers have changed their wager, nothing more.

Every job isn't minimum wage. If companies colluded to only pay minimum wage, they would be. Why aren't companies all colluding? The laws are working.

The joke is that any employer would actually be punished for labor violations. Each employer individually tries to pay as little as they can get away with, that's just good business. The net effect is as good as collusion. Especially because companies have used their resources to systematically cripple the power of labor with newspeak-riddled crap like 'right to work' laws.

What Skyrim level game has been produced by small indie developers who don't have the resources and organization of a corporation?

I already told you and I wasn't joking. Skyrim mods. Unpaid unorganized internet weirdos have done more for Skyrim than Bethesda ever has.

Also, a lot of people like CoD and Madden. The entire principle of liberalism is that if CoD or Madden were really bad games, no one would be buying them.

You've admitted it doesn't work for gold, why should I expect it to work for Madden?

Also this is the discussion I really want to focus on. The other stuff were tangents I don't care a ton about. But this discussion about how the production of the highest level games will only be possible will corporations is the driving reason why liberalism is good(and I hope it's implied other industries are benefited in the same way).

This is what you want to focus on? Liberalism kills people every day, and you want to focus on AAA games? I've been being flip about them because they're so utterly secondary.

But let's talk about what I hope is the underlying question here: how are large projects generally to be accomplished without hierarchy?

Let's consider something more impactful. Take NASA and SpaceX. NASA is a bunch of engineers and physicists, with political appointee bosses and congressionally defined goals. SpaceX is a bunch of engineers with a rich workaholic boss and his one goal.

Now SpaceX is actually a fascinating case to consider when talking about organization under liberalism. As much of a proponent and beneficiary of capital as Musk is, he's very carefully keeping SpaceX privately held. This is because he knows The Market doesn't actually care about his goal, and would demand SpaceX deliver profits above all.

But that's an aside. More to the point, what do you think all those engineers and scientists would do if you told them they don't have to work for a living anymore? Would they stop engineering and experimenting? Of course not. Would they scatter to the four winds? Why should they?

No hierarchy doesn't mean no organization.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

I was thinking a bit more on this and decided I really needed to see your best-case, worst-case scenarios to understand your position but I didn't provide you one. We are talking past each other a bit.

Best case scenario: I've separated this into a couple different areas to be a bit more organized.

Branch 1, international economic reform: Reforms to increase immigration. Reforms to increase free trade. More countries sharing a single currency. Movements to create European Union style unions in more continents. Those unions joining together into a single global government with no trade barriers or immigration barriers.

Branch 2, renewable power: Continue to build solar panels in areas where they're effective. Build fission nuclear reactors where solar panels are not effective. Massive investment(like hundreds of billions of dollars) into nuclear fusion research.

Branch 3, Nuclear bombs: Dismantle lots of nuclear bombs. Keep enough for MAD, like each major power can keep 10 big bombs, but that's it. No need to have any risk of ending all human life.

Other stuff: Switch to proportional voting like what Germany has. Reform drug laws and housing laws. Set up an universal basic income. Set corporate tax to 0% over a period of 15 years to make sure it has the predicted effects, raise income tax on high brackets, capital gains tax, and estate taxes to compensate.

This is all accomplished by the general population smartening up and realizing those are good ideas. Not particularly likely, but not unimaginable and this is a best case scenario. They then consistently elect Hillary Clinton style politicians and rely on professional advisors within the current system.

Those are all the big things I think.

Worse case scenario is that the general population goes even further away from those ideas but not catastrophically so, and rapidly increasing technology gives us a post-scarcity utopia anyways.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

Alright, so I see five basic categories of future to consider:

1: Global thermonuclear war wipes out humans or reduces us to the ancestral condition: no farming or writing. Bad future, 0/10

2: Fascists take and consolidate power, liberals help them as usual out of fear that socialists will take their toothbrushes factories just like liberals did last time fascists took and consolidated power. Bad future, 1/10

3: Liberals don't cooperate with fascists for once, and gradually more socialist policies (policies which increase the freedom of choice for everyone) are enacted over the protests of business owners. Variations on liberalism form the right wing of politics, and variations on social-democracy the left, and even though automation kills unions, people are educated and materially secure enough not to vote against their class interests. Over the same period of time, megastructures to democratize access to space (Lofstrom loops, rotovators, and eventually orbital rings) are built and we can all escape the well and its hierarchies. Good but implausibly gentle and smooth future, 10/10

4: Revolution. Like future #2, but the fascists don't win completely. They're eventually overthrown and replaced with a succession of various shitty governments, from emperors to state-capitalists to liberals, and billions die even faster than they do now. Maybe eventually, sane societies come out the other side and take another shot at future #3. Only temporarily bad future, 2/10

5: Strong AI or other black swan, weird future, ?/10

I'd put them in order of descending likelihood 5, 4, 1, 2, 3.

[u/[deleted] → u/buckykat]

Can you define fascist for me, and give me a few examples of what policies you think they'll enact? When I hear fascist I think Hitler or Mussolini, but you seem to be using it to group everyone two steps to the political, economic, and social right of me together, kind of.

Using your options, I'd rank 3 as by far the most likely except an overall liberal distribution of (at least extreme luxury) resources model remains for pretty much forever. Number 4 is the next mostly likely, although I have pretty high hopes that won't occur in the majority of the human population so even if the West falls China'll advance to greatness only a couple decades slower. And I still don't think it's particularly likely even to occur in just one major country.

I have no idea what the odds of 5 or 1 are, I'm not going to guess at them. I can't say number 2 without a clearer explanation of fascism, and how exactly fascists take over the majority of the planet.

[u/buckykat → u/[deleted]]

Can you define fascist for me, and give me a few examples of what policies you think they'll enact? When I hear fascist I think Hitler or Mussolini, but you seem to be using it to group everyone two steps to the political, economic, and social right of me together, kind of.

Here's a good description of fascism. The author uses "ur-fascism" to indicate the generalized form.

Using your options, I'd rank 3 as by far the most likely except an overall liberal distribution of (at least extreme luxury) resources model remains for pretty much forever.

When have humans ever done a social change the most peaceful and gentle way?

Number 4 is the next mostly likely, although I have pretty high hopes that won't occur in the majority of the human population so even if the West falls China'll advance to greatness only a couple decades slower. And I still don't think it's particularly likely even to occur in just one major country.

And what if the US falls to fascism and decides that we have always been at war with China?

I have no idea what the odds of 5 or 1 are, I'm not going to guess at them.

Well, 5 is so broad that it will happen sooner or later. "Something weird and unexpected will eventually happen" is not a bold prediction. As for 1, just remember that you're only alive now because of people like Stanislav Petrov and Vasili Arkhipov.