Animalism, Earthism

[Pedro I Rengel]

You hearing this, Mr R?

[Pedro I Rengel]

Print baby, print!

[Pedro I Rengel]

Print baby, print!

Should the crash have been allowed and millions allowed to starve?

I don't think that's the point. No serious person is arguing against taking action when things are threatening to get THAT bad. I'm saying... Well, first I'm saying look at what led to the crash in the first place, an ultra-regulated half-governmental body like Fannie May and Freddy Mac run amok, a body concieved for SOCIALIST purposes etc etc. But more importantly, I'm saying that within that precarious bull Heisenberg describes, the part of the G20 that is going broke is precicely the part that regulated and eased with a socialist bias. Europe, China, "emerging markets" like Brazil and India.

The US, which despite it all maintained its capitalist, free market bias, is standing on much more solid ground and still growing.

[Pedro I Rengel]

Jay pan is a different story.

I won't get into it now, but I believe Steve Jobs destroyed the Japanese economy.

[Serendipper]

That's what fixing a problem, instead of trying to make the state go broke by hiding stupid inefficient buro-vortexes behind ideas and self-righteousness (universal healthcare) looks like.

First you pull a bit at the knot, test the looser strings. Get a feel for how tangled it is.

Regurgitated can of alphabet soup.

Chess is a pretty concrete game. Move X leads to certain possible chains of moves, etc.

Here's one of his responses to a request for which move is best in a particular board position.....

I could always do Queen f3, but it's always nice to pack the knights in there as much as possible. Like wolves smelling blood, sensing a kill.

Anyway, I guess my point is just that, even though that pawn is really sexy there with the opposing black one, king all entrapped, Absolutely nothing is lost and everything is gained by opening that square. Only perhaps the illusion of more space.

It's an endemic stylistic characteristic of the Satyr spawn and those they socialize with. Not Satyr himself. Or, let's say, he manages to be concrete and clear also. But a trait of that subculture that flitted around him.

I feel like I'm missing something.... how did chess and Satyr come into play? Animatron fundamentalist minions lobbing propaganda balls before beating brave retreats to safe spaces is how they roll. Disruption is the name of the game.

[Serendipper]

Observe the appeal of the propagandist:

"amount of money supply is not a variable in the equation."

Lol, I remember a scandal once in Venezuela when a video surfaced of a Spanish economist from Podemos making this point, that money supply has nothing to do with inflation. It was a scandal because that guy was Maduro's main economic adviser.

Socialist economist... That's like saying serial killer human rights activist.

Money supply is not a variable
You're wrong because a person who said that was a friend of Maduro. Oh and he was a socialist. Socialism is bad, mkay.

Yeah man, you got me good.

[Serendipper]

"A currency is backed by the faith and credit of the nation issuing it. Currencies can only go up or down in relation to another currency, so if they all print at the same time, then how could any fall in value?"

Gold. Holy moley.

Why gold? So that only those who have the gold will have the power????

Gold is the worst standard of money, followed closely by silver.

You think you're hurting now? Try a gold standard!

[Pedro I Rengel]

No sweetness. You. You are the gold.

That sentence was one of the most beautiful, most endearing things I have ever read.

[Serendipper]

No sweetness. You. You are the gold.

That sentence was one of the most beautiful, most endearing things I have ever read.

Oh? Well maybe you'll graduate to Dr. Seuss soon. Hang onto your hat!

[promethean75]

ladies, ladies, please, can we try to continue with at least some modicum of approbation?

i tell ya what... i'd like to try a specific technique i use with my patients during their therapy sessions with me. i do a bit of marriage counseling on the side, and what i'll have the couple do is a role-reversal; the husband will play the wife and the wife, the husband. this gives each of them the opportunity to portray the other as they see them, which in turn allows each of them to experience each other from the other's perspective. now what i'd like you two to do is switch roles. i want pedro to argue in favor of socialism, and i want serendipper to argue in favor of capitalism.

[Serendipper]

ladies, ladies, please, can we try to continue with at least some modicum of approbation?

i tell ya what... i'd like to try a specific technique i use with my patients during their therapy sessions with me. i do a bit of marriage counseling on the side, and what i'll have the couple do is a role-reversal; the husband will play the wife and the wife, the husband. this gives each of them the opportunity to portray the other as they see them, which in turn allows each of them to experience each other from the other's perspective. now what i'd like you two to do is switch roles. i want pedro to argue in favor of socialism, and i want serendipper to argue in favor of capitalism.

That's easy! Any point the socialist makes, the retort is ad hom, so:

Socialist: Money supply is not a variable in price.
Capitalist: Socialism communism nazi stupid!

Or if the capitalist makes the first point:

Capitalist: Gold!
Socialist: Ben Franklin said gold was the basic cause of the Revolutionary War.
Capitalist: Socialism communism nazi stupid!

Admittedly, I've often considered adopting the capitalist persona, but only I'd be honest with my intention to enslave others for my profit to expose it for what it is.

Another plan I've been kicking around is enticing a seemingly levelheaded conservative to come here to genuinely argue his position, but you are probably right that only a feigning socialist could pull it off without mudslinging.

I'll be the capitalist, but a real socialist will have to be my interlocutor. Who wants it? Who is detached enough not to drag emotion into it? (I was capitalist 90% of my life. I got this ).

[promethean75]

you got this, pedro... ain't nuthin to it but to do it.

pretend you smoked some old pot while stationed in belize
and then you ate a cold pot of cheddar mac 'n cheese
and then you changed to pol pot in levis dungarees
and now you're spittin protocols
in posts at ILP

tell em how you abolish private property, landlords and they rent
how you throw them niggas in the gulag, make em live in a tent

raise them taxes and obligatory labor
force them capitalists to give up they paper
make education compulsory and stable
demystify the myth of cain and abel

hit em with some feuerbach
how god is a projection
of the human psyche
and if they call you an infidel
ax 'hey, ya'll don't like me'?

tell em you tryin' to liberate niggas from they fear of god
iconaclastic killer of spooks
like your name's general zod

superman, i defy you!
don't let nuthin' get by you
knockin' religions out the box
like the fuckin red sox

fuck them niggas, they need to know the troof
assassinatin' false beliefs
like your name was wilkes booth

opiate of the masses, my asses
make them niggas take classes
on materialism and economics
on lunch break smoke some chronic

college tuition? it ain't loaned
boring classrooms? we gets stoned
need a doctor? not an issue
gotta cry? here's a tissue

no more class antagonisms
complete brotherhood
loan your bike to a stranger
like you know you should

it's second nature
we don't even think about it anymore
nigga need a ride, here's my bike
and he's out the door

but he better bring it back
this ain't no utopian society
i bust a nigga in his nose
if the muthafucka lie to me

so write a little red book for total indoctrination
chairman pedro I rengel
benevolent dictator
of a whole fuckin nation

got posters of pedro in schools, subways and museums
when niggas ride by they point: 'did you see him?!'

friend of labor and workers
try to exploit em, he'll stop ya
leading workers in strikes
like your name's jimmy hoffa

stop playin' my nigga and recognize your potential
you come from venezuela so you got the credentials

[Silhouette]

now what i'd like you two to do is switch roles. i want pedro to argue in favor of socialism, and i want serendipper to argue in favor of capitalism.

I'll quite happily argue in favour of Capitalism if no other pro-Socialists want to.

The way I see it is that regardless of your economic model, the basic work still needs to be done - the work methods will be the same. People still need food, water, shelter et al. and the people who ran the provision of these things before are not going to suddenly forget how to provide these things even if the economic model were to change, nor are they instantly going to provide them better or worse as a result. The infrastructure will still be there, and isn't going to evolve into the distant future or disappear overnight any more or less than it will day to day while things stay the same.

The question is how best can we maintain and even improve the provision of not only the basics but also any luxuries that people might want on top of that - if additionally possible - in the long run. It's a question of motivation to get people to do this.

There is intrinsic reward in itself to help others as well as yourself and provide what you and others need/want, but in addition to this, extrinsic reward will motivate even more. For example, one can be provided with more of an equal share of what is produced if they do more than an equal share of providing it. More than this, it is necessary to motivate the organisers and first movers because not everyone has the initiative to get things started in the first place. Once this is done, followers can fall into place. A good way to motivate the leaders is to give them free reign over their means to produce and a sense of responsibility through the private ownership thereof. That way they are personally accountable for the success or failure that they make from their usage. Allowing only voluntary trade will maximise their free reign, even to buy and sell different means of production to best achieve what they want to achieve in the interests of providing what people need/want in exchange for their greater share of what is produced.

Followers are equally free to volunteer their contribution towards production, through the use of the means of production owned by leaders, in exchange for an agreed share of the comparative advantage that their additional involvement adds to what would be produced by just the owner by themselves. Anything left goes to the owner, to accrue over time and either spend on themselves in reward, or on more means of production to supply even more of what people need/want + potentially even greater personal reward in future.

To prevent any abuse, exploitation or fraud, anyone is free to compete for the ownership and operation of means of production in the same or different areas, to attract potential buyers to their more honest production of value. This in turn forces other capitalists to cease their malpractice to win back their share of the market. Prices are kept low to keep business owners in the market in the same way, but not so low that it can't be afforded to operate the means of production in the first place.

I welcome any criticism by pro-Capitalists of this attempted steelmanning: anything to add or take away.

Then if there are any pro-Capitalists with the honesty and intellectual integrity to steelman any counter positions to what I have argued above (with/without any valid corrections), Socialist or otherwise, without any petty jabs, jibes and insults - in the line with the same courtesy that I have afforded them with the above - please do so.

[Pedro I Rengel]

Yo I ain't playin
Always hear you complainin
Bout how people are mean
And you gotta wipe the slate clean

Think you fool me with your "I'm so cynical"
But I know your idealism is anything but cyclical
That shit constant
Wearing masks to hide it from its own absurdity
Or, if you want, to maintain its original purity

Rather be a Nazi than accept a world of nonsense
Or concede that from 90% nonsense comes 10% anything
That's ever been worth anything
Like compost and weeding out evergreens
Tough life, tough luck
Diamond brain condemned to stay in the rough
Seduced not su much by suffering
But by childish ideas borne of glut and guilt
I'm built
Of stronger stuff
I see how pretty ideas lead to porn, type: snuff
Gucci cuffs
Meet me at the VIP box, I'll bring Hitler's muff
Or stuff shitty ideas in the back of the car
And wrap em up in plastic
That's an oil derivative
Trump life long lasting

[Serendipper]

now what i'd like you two to do is switch roles. i want pedro to argue in favor of socialism, and i want serendipper to argue in favor of capitalism.

I'll quite happily argue in favour of Capitalism if no other pro-Socialists want to.

I was hoping to argue in favor of capitalism, but this may be the best deal I can get and at least I can be assured you'll be fair.

The way I see it is that regardless of your economic model, the basic work still needs to be done - the work methods will be the same. People still need food, water, shelter et al. and the people who ran the provision of these things before are not going to suddenly forget how to provide these things even if the economic model were to change, nor are they instantly going to provide them better or worse as a result. The infrastructure will still be there, and isn't going to evolve into the distant future or disappear overnight any more or less than it will day to day while things stay the same.

Makes sense.

The question is how best can we maintain and even improve the provision of not only the basics but also any luxuries that people might want on top of that - if additionally possible - in the long run. It's a question of motivation to get people to do this.

Greed is a good motivator, and is perfectly applicable in a socialist system including UBI; it's just that the "zero" mark has been moved higher: everyone starts above poverty and rises however high their toils and ingenuity can take them. Top taxes were 70-90% in the US in some of the best years which is evidence that greed thrived just fine.

There is intrinsic reward in itself to help others as well as yourself and provide what you and others need/want, but in addition to this, extrinsic reward will motivate even more. For example, one can be provided with more of an equal share of what is produced if they do more than an equal share of providing it.

I'm not sure that is capitalism since the worker is not capitalizing on anything but his own labor, and in proportion to the amount of labor he does, which is pretty much the socialist's position. I mean, even if he doesn't get to keep 100% of his own productivity, he should at least have the opportunity to agree to the amount that he does get to keep. At that point, redistributive taxation would no longer be ethical since the divisions of productivity would be amicable and no theft or slight of hand occurred.

More than this, it is necessary to motivate the organisers and first movers because not everyone has the initiative to get things started in the first place.

Well, it should be the minimum amount of compensation required to motivate the person to perform that task just like it is for everyone else in society. Why should society reward someone more than the minimum he'd charge to perform the service of creating a factory and supplying jobs? If a roofer puts a roof on your house, do you pay him 400x what he pays his average employee or do you pay him the least he will accept for the job?

You could retort that job creation is worth more than a roof and therefore not comparable, but that's only arguing that the creation of more wage-slavery should be regarded as a virtue. If anything, it shouldn't be rewarded, but taxed and disincentivized.

Now if the job creation proposed were a worker co-op, then the job creator would have to bargain with potential employees for the lowest % of productivity he's willing to accept. If he doesn't agree to the terms of one applicant, he can interview others. If he can't find an applicant willing to allow him to retain a suitable hunk of the pie, then either his business model is not good enough or there are so many other jobs that the workers are not that hungry. In other words, his proposal is not construed as a service to society.

Once this is done, followers can fall into place. A good way to motivate the leaders is to give them free reign over their means to produce and a sense of responsibility through the private ownership thereof.

I don't have a problem with private ownership. Perhaps I'm not the best defender of that brand of socialism. Socialism to me means taking care of society. Although, it wouldn't bother me if the government seized google and prevented any further "improvements". Google really is a public utility.

However, in a worker co-op, which is still privately owned, everyone has incentive to see the company make profit since everyone will share in that profit. Really the only aspect changed is a reduction in % the originator keeps in exchange for an army of people highly motivated to increase profits in what otherwise would have been known as "his company".

That way they are personally accountable for the success or failure that they make from their usage.

Makes sense.

Allowing only voluntary trade will maximise their free reign, even to buy and sell different means of production to best achieve what they want to achieve in the interests of providing what people need/want in exchange for their greater share of what is produced.

It's true that the free market is often the best guide for what people want, but there are some occasions where I wouldn't mind seeing more regulation because the free market has no mechanism to control certain aspects of offerings. For instance if I can get a citation for having a trailer light out, then the lights should be regulated to standards of corrosion prevention. Either remove the fine or regulate the lights. I shouldn't have to shoulder the burden of the greed of some company in making sub-standard lights. Or perhaps the best argument is food inspection: there is no free market mechanism to ensure I'm buying what the label says.

The free market has many advantages, but also has some deficiencies for lack of mechanisms to influence production decisions.

Followers are equally free to volunteer their contribution towards production, through the use of the means of production owned by leaders, in exchange for an agreed share of the comparative advantage that their additional involvement adds to what would be produced by just the owner by themselves.

Sounds good but the problem is that it isn't an agreed share of production, but only the minimum the worker will take, which is a function of how hungry he is and how many other people are hungry. Incentive exists to keep people poor, ignorant, and hungry in order to maximize profits.

Anything left goes to the owner, to accrue over time and either spend on themselves in reward, or on more means of production to supply even more of what people need/want + potentially even greater personal reward in future.

Well, Buffett gave his money to Gates who then sent their money to Africa. A noble cause to be sure, but there are domestic needs as well. And Bezos is investing in space tourism with his share. I read that Zuckerberg got into a spat about land ownership with the natives in Hawaii in order that he could build an opulent home. What most of those people do with their money is not anything that benefits the people who gave them their profits, so it can't be construed as representative of what is best for society.

To prevent any abuse, exploitation or fraud, anyone is free to compete for the ownership and operation of means of production in the same or different areas, to attract potential buyers to their more honest production of value. This in turn forces other capitalists to cease their malpractice to win back their share of the market.

So being born comes with the obligation of being an entrepreneur with potential to compete with big business or else have no means of recourse?

Prices are kept low to keep business owners in the market in the same way, but not so low that it can't be afforded to operate the means of production in the first place.

True, prices are kept low by competition, but competition is not relegated to the capitalist system. A worker co-op could form to underbid another worker co-op in the same industry if someone spied a niche. Exploitation of workers is not needed to compete.

I welcome any criticism by pro-Capitalists of this attempted steelmanning: anything to add or take away.

Then if there are any pro-Capitalists with the honesty and intellectual integrity to steelman any counter positions to what I have argued above (with/without any valid corrections), Socialist or otherwise, without any petty jabs, jibes and insults - in the line with the same courtesy that I have afforded them with the above - please do so.

I really wish we could find someone to genuinely argue capitalism fairly, but having been a capitalist the majority of my life, I see clearly that it's based on absolutist assertions with the focus being to keep people down for relative advantage, even if it means having less for oneself. Capitalism is itself an artifact of environmental stress, such as poverty, and the neurological damage caused thereby, and to think one could argue in that condition without resorting to fight/flight mechanisms seems unrealistic. The equivalent is expecting someone to cogently argue the earth is flat or that god exists without resorting to emotions in lieu of evidence and reason; it can't be done.

The economy is zero-sum and issuance of money comes only at the issuance of debt, not the consolidation of profits. If the rich get richer, then the money is coming from everyone else. Every rich person represents a number of people who no longer have the money. Every rich city represents at least a city that no longer has the money. At the country-level, the power of the US is consolidated from china and mexico through their cheap labor which is a result of their desperation, which the US has a hand in causing by whatever means possible, I'm sure. The american workers who lost their jobs due to outsourcing are herded into concentration camps called slums and prisons where they work for 25 cents/hr, probably because they were caught with a drug, which was a result of their dire predicament in the first place, which is: being forced to purchase the things that they no longer get paid to produce.

[Silhouette]

now what i'd like you two to do is switch roles. i want pedro to argue in favor of socialism, and i want serendipper to argue in favor of capitalism.

I'll quite happily argue in favour of Capitalism if no other pro-Socialists want to.

I was hoping to argue in favor of capitalism, but this may be the best deal I can get and at least I can be assured you'll be fair.

You go ahead, man.

It's my expectation that the advanced theory of mind generally associated with the left-leaning - as backed up by those insular cortex studies that you linked - will produce much more legitimate steelmanning of right-leaning positions than vice versa. It seems perfectly possible than the left understand the right even better than they do, as a result of this. If you don't understand the minds of others, you don't even know what you're arguing against, which sufficiently explains the deluge of terrible argumentation against the left by the right to which both you and I have pertually been witness... much to my dismay...

In a roundabout way, the more evidence we provide of our knowledge and understanding of their position, the less of a leg they have to stand on in criticising ours.

I'll hold off on any criticism of your reply to my steelmanning until pro-Capitalists have sufficiently amended my/our understanding(s) of their position.

[promethean75]

the thing is, when arguing with a capitalist, you aren't arguing against any air-tight logic or line of reasoning which would unconditionally defend the position. even adam smith is full of holes which are easily spotted. the problem is that you are arguing against an instinct that's embedded in the very genome of homo sapien; a hedonistic species that always seeks out the path of least resistance. translated: get somebody else to do the work so you can sit around on your lazy ass and tell yourself how fantastic you are. this is the crux of the biscuit, gentlemen, the non plus ultra of our problem. it requires a higher type of being to spiritualize the pride of effort, labor and work, and share a requited respect for others who do the same.

as long as you are confronted with capitalist who is comfortable in his appropriated wealth, his arguments will always be a means to maintaining that end... and he'll do whatever he has to, unconsciously or not, to produce justifications for himself and his place. only very rarely do we find an enlightened capitalist capable of disinterested reason and rationale (e.g., serendipper) who recognizes that crude, base, animal instinct and transcends himself to reach a greater height. purging the ape from the man is a difficult task, and many won't survive the procedure.

[Jakob]

No sweetness. You. You are the gold.

That sentence was one of the most beautiful, most endearing things I have ever read.

Haha.
Maybe I should learn to stop worrying about the bizarre species of silliness that emerge on the left and just see it as a botanical garden of endearing error.

Promethean - it is rather the socialist who cant think about anything besides his money.

As I explained before, capitalism is about creation.

[Jakob]

No socialist was ever witnessed talking about anything besides how to get more money from other people. Capitalists tend to be grounded in the desire to produce great things and benefit from that.

To the socialist, there is no such thing as creation; all the world is theft. It makes them feel comfortable; there is no pressure to have merit to either self or others.

[promethean75]

you're a bright fellow (when you aren't rambling), but i can't for the life of me figure out why you continuously fail to grasp the simplest, most incremental fact that distinguishes the two systems in material terms.

human beings are, first and foremost, before they are labeled 'capitalist' or 'socialist', material creatures that produce and consume in their environment. they do not become one or the other - capitalist or socialist - until they are put into a particular social arrangement in which these processes take place. what they are all doing is being 'concerned with creation and product' (call it commodities, money, credit, or fucking bullion cubes.... doesn't matter), and where they differ is how they proceed to enter into this discourse of production and exchange. the only fundamental and essential characteristic distinguishing one from the other is the role they play in this discourse. there is nothing else 'different' about them. same species, same desires, same capacities. it isn't that one 'values money' and the other 'values creation'. this is poetry. we aren't doing poetry... were doing science. when a person derives their means of sustenance from another's labor, they are categorically different from the laborer, and being such, they don't actually 'create' anything.... because one cannot create without laboring. i keep telling you over, and over and over again; the capitalist does nothing in the chain of production. nothing. and he does so much nothing, you'd notice no difference in anything - not production or distribution - if he were absent. both of these functions are a form of labor and performed by the worker, not the capitalist.

now it may be the case that the capitalist likes to think of himself as an artist, or a creator, or an innovator, or a genius, or a pioneer, or whatever else floats his boat... but none of this can be actually realized without labor... and if he isn't doing the labor, he has no part in the transformation of ideas into material substance. he will of course profit from the creation of such, but he takes no part in making it happen. that's the beef worker's have with the capitalist. either get your hands dirty like everyone else, or fuck off. you ain't gettin' a free ride. what the fuck do i look like... the social security office?

[Pedro I Rengel]

"the thing is, when arguing with a capitalist, you aren't arguing against any air-tight logic or line of reasoning which would unconditionally defend the position"

Right, we're not fanatics.

[promethean75]

No socialist was ever witnessed talking about anything besides how to get more money from other people.

that! that right there. it's comments like that, that i don't know what to do with. is this guy kidding? he's got to be. he's got it so perfectly backwards, it's got to be contrived... part of a joke... he's pulling my leg. shirley he is. he can't be THAT stupid. i refuse to believe it, so i've got to humor him. yes, that's what i must do.

[Jakob]

Capitalism simply breeds better human beings.
They are logically required to be more productive, more resourceful, keener in observation and interpretation, more talented, more prone to mean something to others, and simply more resilient to the actual conditions of nature.

A socialist can only emerge in a bourgeoise environment.

[Pedro I Rengel]

" you'd notice no difference in anything - not production or distribution - if he were absent."

Yes, I'm sure they would all spontaneously coalesce in that particular formation and organization structure anyways. "Ah!" you say, "but we don't need the filthy capitalists anyway... The state can do it!"

Ok, so now we are arguing about who takes that role, not if the role exists or is productive.

One possibly good question here for ya: was it the state or capitalists who initially figured out and continue to figure out more productive and powerful ways to organize labour?

Is the capitalist a parasite of the worker, that genious of production engineer that he is, or is the state bureaucrat the parasite of the capitalist's ideas (such as we see in China there)?

[Jakob]

"the thing is, when arguing with a capitalist, you aren't arguing against any air-tight logic or line of reasoning which would unconditionally defend the position"

Right, we're not fanatics.

They are arguing against life itself.
Life is more than just air tight logic alone, of course capitalist logic is airtight. If you are inside, it has produced every single thing youre seeing. It is a way of really existing. But the socialist is so cosmically dumb that, it has been proven to me the past years, that even the smallest logic step is too much for him to take. Capitalism isnt given the chance to argue to the socialist, because the socialist is completely hostile to any order of statements than: there is happiness - it is experienced by others - I want it - raaaaah!
Of course most these statements are somewhat disguised, but not too well.