Das Experiment wrote:But if those other people are stupid wastrels, like you say, who cares what they think? How is that an adequate measure of you being more knowledgeable about other people than other people? The thing seems either circular (people are stupid, therefore I'm more knowledgeable) or self contradictory (stupid people saying I'm knowledgeable, therefore I'm more knowledgeable than them).
This whole kind cares what each other thinks, and they are the majority.
Consider the huge popularity of tabloids and trash magazines.
A phenomenon for you: consider internet forums, including this one. It's the flawed arguments that attract the most attention and get the most publicity. Further, it's mainly stupidity that ends them - a stubbornness on the part of the loudest shouter, and the stupidity of others in dealing with such people.
And no, my evaluation of my abilities is little less than summing up the scientific method with regard to a specific subject.
Das Experiment wrote:In any case, I reject your view of people. I don't see people in those terms, I think that sort of cynicism is always open to being used as a justification for ordering people around and forcing them to do things. I'm not interested in forcing anyone to do anything.
I'm interested in relatively restricting people who are proven to be economically irresponsible, and relatively liberating those who are economically responsible. The current degree of justice in social matters is fine by me for now, though that is not to say it doesn't need improvement - just that I have little concern for it compared to our massive economic problems.
I do not worship ideals, such as "freedom", which is meaningless unless qualified and applied to real life.
Das Experiment wrote:I called you a Marxist because you're a Marxist, or at best a post-Marxist.
Marx wasn't the only anti-Capitalist.
I don't buy all of Marx's arguments, and I've only even read one of his books fully.
I even have sympathy for ideologies incompatible with his.
If you are trying to crudely summarise of my position as "Problem = Capitalism" and "Belief = Socialism" therefore "Silhouette = Marxist" then you're guilty of being ignorant, lazy and wrong. A pre-mature eagerness to box people into pre-existing categories for the sake of either dismissing or condoning them will not serve you when it comes to all-important distinctions as well as finer details that can make all the difference.
I'm not a revolutionary, which is essential to Leninist/Trotskyist Socialism. I am concerned with the politics of change to something co-operative, and Marx wrote no concrete political plans. Whether you meant your label as derogatory of not, it doesn't sufficiently fit. In fact it does more harm towards understanding my position than good.
Das Experiment wrote:The electoral system (indeed 'democratic' culture in general) is one of the main reasons they squander their abilities. They think someone else is taking care of stuff in roughly the right way because they expressed their opinion a few times.
For indirect democracy, yes.
Das Experiment wrote:Can you give me a couple of examples of when socialism has been open, transparent and factual in the last couple of centuries of human history?
It's just a massive, horrible failure in reality, and I think the reasons for that could only be overcome by turning humans into something else, which I'm also radically opposed to doing.
If you're only going to consider the past then you're only as good as a Conservative or any other reactionary. Why would I be interested in repeating something that has failed exactly how it was done before? Learning from it is fine, but expecting the past to be a complete set of possibilities for each broad label so far conceived is just an argument for things staying the same.
Das Experiment wrote:It depends on what mechanism you use and how you define 'playing mean'. This is why I ask for examples, I want to know what you think this would actually look like, beyond the Marxist rhetoric because trust me, I've read all that, considered it for a long time, and not found it persuasive. What persuades me about socialists is when they actually do things that benefit their fellow humans, which quite a few have done at various times and in various ways. Even the welfare state as it was originally conceived and set up in the UK wasn't such a bad idea and certainly benefited a lot of poor people, but the long term consequences of that have been that it has turned into an enormous system for social control. It hasn't made anyone free, and hasn't produced the sort of society you have described (which for the record, in theory, I think is rather nice-sounding and not one I'd have much objection about living in, if it could be achieved).
"Playing mean" is using deception and abusing power imbalance to take from others more than you give back to the point that so many are so restricted and trapped in their poverty, whilst some are so ridiculously rich that they are more powerful than their government and able to essentially direct the politics of entire countries.
I agree that people who are physically "being the change they want to see in the world" are the most impressive. I do this in the intellectual realm, and as such, my powers are limited compared to those who physically act out their plans. But they need direction and confirmation, which I can provide. My purpose here is to iron out difficult points that are well guarded so as to help others understand them and apply them to their own lives.
Concerning the welfare State - in conjunction with modern Capitalism and neo-liberal values it was always a combination doomed to fail. But the State is a much more obvious target for the failure of such a concoction than an obscured though simple ideology that requires a modicum of intellectual consideration in order to understand it.
Importantly, the welfare-State is not actually Socialist. It's a very American propaganda move to associate an element of a conflicting ideology to their own failing system, and then blame that. Socialism is distinct from modern Capitalism, there is no overlap. It's not a sliding scale of "more Capitalist vs. more Socialist".
Yet another deception for me to clarify for the benefit of others ^