Capitalism has shown that it's war

Modern western-born socialists never came into smelling distance of even the mildest earthly hardship. They are so completely oblivious of the privilege they were given at birth that nature herself is blushing in embarrassment.

Rhetorics aside, google has been a paid catalogue for well over a decade, if you wanted to appear in it with your company in 2008, you had to pay for ads as well. In 2015, my phones illicit voice recognition was already producing ads about most things I was talking about in its vicinity. I guess Trump must be good friends with dr Emmett Brown.

Let me know if you care to actually put that in an argument form and/or respond to my post.

Are you actually saying that since I make money from creative work, I should not give a shit about totalitarian trends? about a panopticon that is much more in place already than peopel realize? the way children are being made into addicted zombies? I mean, if you aren’t willing to actually make an argument - I know, I guess it could be seen as scary - I have to guess at the above.

Hey, look, if you have some shit job, I’d feel sympathy. I worked hard but I also had some luck too. If you think Trump is going to make it easier for you to not have a shit job, good luck. If you have a decent job that matches your skills and interests, then why the fuck do you complain about left policies?

I mean seriously, come on, make some sense.

And, in case, this for some reason needs to be said, I wasn’t complaining about having creative work.

:mrgreen:

Yeah, I knew I was gonna hit a nerve.

You’re a person deeply privileged by your capitalist environment. But you want to feel like a victim.

Way to ignore the very argument of your own life, not to mention everything I said.

Where would you be under Socialism? Considering how unhappy you are with an existence that, to anyone living in Socialism would be absolute paradise, you would likely have long killed yourself.

For your information about my own situation - not everyone who disagrees with your ideology does so out of unhappiness. You’ll be hard pressed to find a happier man than me, if we’re not looking at contentedness but deeper. I like my struggle.

Its rather my happiness which prompts me to look down with a bit of amusement on your lack of gratitude for your privilege, a privilege of seeing ones own valued efforts valued by society. Thats a most beautiful gift to have. Capitalism at work.

I know what Socialism is, I grew up in it. I know what Capitalism is, Ive found freedom in it. Its good not to have to work for the state. Its good to not be on welfare. Its good that the government doesn’t control the value of my efforts. I am grateful.

I was critical of the response, not bitching and moaning.

I could have responded to your other post by saying ‘Don’t go all hysterical…’ but that would be just making shit up. This isn’t just personalities and putdowns.

I was critical of your response. It did not make clear you even understood the issues. So I repeated them. I have some sense of your beliefs. I can’t imagine you want facebook to have more power than it already has.

Where have I said I am a victim? I mentioned my job precisely because it meant I was doing well, I don’t reach even the middle class, but I am doing something I like. I would likely be doing it under a monarchy also and certainly in most of what the right calls socialist countries also. IOW this is precisely not me complaining about my personal situation. I find your response off topic and silly, point this out and I am playing victim. What are you 5? You usually don’t waste my time. I generally like the way you post, but you see the word capitalists, assume you know me, and just support other people drivel and come with no substance yourself.

Did you actually read his ridiculous response? Nah.

You’re a team player. So my post triggers you into thinking I am on the other team, since you think there are only two. So you attack me personally, instead of seeing if his post made the slightest sense. Because he’s on your team.

You assume later you know my ideology. You don’t. I don’t fit in the easy boxed and am pissed at the two sides I am told I am supposed to pick from.

The self-congratulate thing with you hitting a nerve is just snore positioning garbage.

Your comment made no sense. I pointed this out. You can show how what I said was wrong or you can keep focus on me and not deal with substance.

I could frame your posts as victim, and call it all whining about socialists, and virtue signalers and how terrible you think everything is. Who cares? I see a lot of focusing on me and not a lot of response to the issues I raised.

And whatever the faults of socialists and there are many this does not mean capitalism is OK.

It’s like I have two terrible neighbors and when I tell one not to drive his car at the kids on the block he tells me the guy across the street is giving them drugs.

My response to both is, yeah, great, the other side you think is the only possible other side is fucked up. Great, that doesn’t mean your favorite team doesn’t have problems.

It’s funny, you’re still just happy with the idea that since I have a creative job, I think I am a victim if I am critical of the advances in power of certain monopolies towards totalitarian control, even while conservatives whine about fb - though they seem ignorant in general about the power of google.

Again, read The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism, get back to me.

You have no idea what is already happening. Of if you do, you perhaps out of misguided team loyalty don’t want to say anything about it.

I hear the right complain about facebook, well guess what, they are aiming for power way beyond what they have now and nothing is getting in the way. Smart cities are coming, so even if you can keep your house clean and your phone safely not a smart one, they gonna know all about everything you and your kids and your peers do. But they’ll never be an issue cause they’re a corporation, only governments with their taxes and pc laws are a danger.

Since you can’t even bother to make a post with substance that’s the idiocy on your part I’m left with.

Team zombies meet team zombies. Where’s SErendipper when you need him? I could leave you to play with each other, like you are in the public realm, the two bears dominance posing to the mirror image.

Talk about triggered. The capitalists attack me and do not respond to points made.

They would be absolutely right that the left would respond the same way if I talked about immigration or the EU or Brexit.

Suddenly they would get personal and triggered and label me racist and fascist. And not get into substance.

Both groups seem to act very much the same right now.

Enjoy the debates with your mirror images everyone, the boxes are working well for you.

You are a good poster, I voted you one of the best, but this is stoopit K. Don’t you dare to look at your blessings?

I want you to dig into the LOGIC of it all. Of value. Not waste your mind on observing that the world isn’t perfectly accommodating any feelings of righteousness a person may have.

Can’t you see the arguments for capitalism as allowing people to exist without the blessing of their bureaucratic superiors?

Let’s pretend we can all do more than judge, and focus on the logic of value creation and freedom.

Yes, nature is hard. Excuse me if socialism fails to impress me as a way to refine it.

The typical argument against capitalism, yours included, is always akin to the absurd statement life is hard therefore we should hack it to pieces.

And Pedros argument wasn’t ridiculous or contemptible, it was, more so than your efforts, an actual attempt at a constructive point on how to tackle the problem of monopoly.

What do you think is gained by the observation that there are problems? Does this make for any value, this statement?
No. So you have no ground to look down on Pedros statement.

It is, in fact, the only solution. Make better products. That is how nature overcomes monopolies, and we are hardly in the position of considering ourselves above and beyond nature. Nature doesn’t have a government that curbs evolution because it isn’t fair. If it did, it wouldn’t really be very fertile.

Thats what happens with all states where government is valued above the citizens; impotence, barrenness.

I just read a pm from one of the people I have jousted with here and I appreciated it. Before this I had a few days to mull over this thread and found a few interesting anomalies, or what I wish were anomalies but which I see common both the right and the left when it comes to these issues:

  1. Barabarianhorde, because I have creative work, labels me privileged and therefore should shut up. IOW since I have decent work, I have no right to complain about capitalism, since I am its beneficiary. He further says I was playing victim. Before I unpack the assumptions in this ludicrous act of his, let me point out the irony.
    • One of the things the left often does is tell people to shut up because they are privileged. A white guy like me, doing adequately economically and not even gay, needs to shut up since I am privileged. Now I can expect this argument from the right also.
    • Assumption 1 – if I am the doing well in a system that is semi-capitalist, then I cannot complain about how current capitalism is carried out and what it is leading to. This strikes me as not just confused but dangerous. The people who are scrabbling to survive in any system – under communism, fascism, oligarchies like ours, whatever - have less time an energy to notice what is going on, analyze what is going on, articulate that analysis. If the ‘priviledged’ should shut the fuck up, you are cutting off one of ways we can get good feedback about what is happening. It’s also the kind of thing I expect from the left. If I am in category X, then I should shut up.
    • Assumption 2 – the only thing I should be concerned about is my paycheck. If there is a totalitarian coup, but they still want the products of my creative work, well, If I complain, I am a privileged person playing victim. (And frankly there is a good chance I would do alright under a totalitarian regime, at least economically. Again, not that I make much, but I get by on work I actually care about) But the implication that I am doing fine, so I should not be concerned about the rise of the panopticon, the already begun systematic behavior modification by social media, and their plans to control us, or really let their clients control us using the mass data collection, illegal data collection, and already used modification tech. that is happening right now. No, if my paycheck is fine, I should just shut up.
    • Assumption 3 – it doesn’t matter if I am right. IOW at least in their first round of responses, I was the issue. It doesn’t matter if something is happening that would be problematic to them. The only issue is to get me shut up. I can get this from the Left if I point out the problems of transpersons with male bodies beating all the born as women in sporting events, when they will say I am racist, white and privileged. Or if I talk about Brexit and the problems with centralizing power in the EU. The actual problems, don’t matter. It is making clear who gets to speak and making clear that we never have to look at any problems with ‘our’ system. Shut the fuck up. Go ad hom. Shut them down. I can also get this from religious conservatives if anything challenges their religions
    • Assumption 4 – pedro’s response was that I should amass enough material wealth to stop the monopolies. Note the jump. It does not matter if what I am saying is a problem. He would not care or it doesn’t even matter if he would, he doesn’t even bother to look at that. Jakob seemed to be bothered by some of fb’s actions, but it is non-issue for Pedro. The answer to any problem with modern capitalism in real life is amassing wealth and then using this wealth to control the policies of supposedly democratic nations. That is the way we control things. Become right, control society. A tacit acceptance of oligarchies. I am sure he is rooting for the oligarchy to intervene openly, like with ground troops in his beloved Venezuela. To bring back capitalism. He might want to look at the last 6 or 7 counties the US intervened openly in, those in northern Africa, to see how well that goes down for the people. Because those in power do not care about countries or people. They used to give a shit about the citizens in their own counties, but they don’t have countries anymore. FB and Google are happy to help communist regimes with their massive data collection. They are also happy to turn their info over to ‘our’ governments. If you think the capitalists as a rule are for capitalism or freedom or against communism, you’re missing what is going on. Maybe the invisible hand should have prevented this, but it didn’t and it’s not going to.

Right now these people are making products that take in sound and images from your homes. They are making smart cities, so even if you keep your homes clear, they will have enough data to know your personality, politics, likely whereabouts at any time. They have machines now, that will be working on doing behavior modification on you, that you will not consciously register. They do not care who else has this information. It will go to government, other corporations and will also get hacked and spread because they do not care about your security, privacy, rights, identity.

Me, I don’t see that as a right vs. left issue. I do see it as a product of capitalisms concentrations of power in a few hands, and conservatives should be concerned about 1) how this goes against the constitution 2) has already reduced, even more, democracy 3) goes against the views of corporations that originally were in place 4) might as well be communist

It is not better if there is huge power in the hands of corporations rather than governments, because they are just the new governments. This doesn’t mean I want to have the state control the means of production or send dissenters to gulags.

Everything is so binary, very few people seem able to think outside of binary boxes.

I see religious ideologues on the right and left.
Upon meeting a new person, they quickly determine their categories. Once you know the categories, classify them as on my team or not on my team.
From that moment forward try to shut them down.
If we are going to get anywhere, we need to be able to deal with cognitive dissonance. We need to be able to look at what is actually happening in the name of or even directly because of beliefs we hold dear. That’s true on the right and the left.
If we react simply as I am on TEAM A, that seems to be an attack on TEAM A, smash the attack by all means
Well,
The people with real power will be laughing at us.

Here’s the thing Karpel, and why not? Let’s bring it to what Venezuelans call a “you to you.”

These positions you hold, while ostensibly being about forgetting the false dichotomy or whatever, are positions. They are for some things, against some others, all in the context of certain given facts.

While the positions you hold are supposed to be against the “left and right,” purport to be, they are in fact left. They are left in a very important way: they ar the very positions that are held, and support, and lead to the direction of ressources to, the very people you are ostensibly bashing right now: facebook, China, etc. The creeps. What they need most from a polity is that they hold the positions and opinions you hold. Below the facts that you mention, there is an assumption, a base line of things necessary for your position to hold up: amassment of wealth is biased, as a natural phenomenon, to the abuse and misstreatment and even theft of people who do not amass it. It’s not about whether it does in fact do this or not, but about the fact that it is naturally biased to act this way. That’s #1. So, for instance, barbarianhorde mentions how you have an awesome job doing something you love that allows you to live comfortably, all under the system you bash and that people without these privileges would kill, do kill, to have, and your underlying assumptions come up: it is not about th final results of a given system, but the natural biases towards evil.

For an example of evil, you point to the actions of facebook, for example. It doesn’t matter that it is anecdotal, it is even possible that most big collections of capital have acted similarly, because it is not about deducing a truth from reality but rather showing a real life example of a known truth: the evil bias of capital.

Since it is not evidence but example, you miss what the evidence actually points to: th consequnces of positions such as yours. For it is only in a political economy wherein positions like yours hold currency that companies like facebook are able to operate freely in the areas you discuss with fear and abhorrence, and even tend to form th justification for those actions.

This is the big distinction between leeft and right that I have been working on since i returned here to ilp. The right is about looking at reality and deducing truths from it. The left is about already knowing truth and seeking examples of it in reality.

But I said we were bringing it to a you to you.

I do ignor the points you are trying to make. Because I have no business thre, th way you form arguments and posistions, the very frameworks you use, are not the ones I operate in. I do not understand, cannot work with, argumnts that try to derive reality from morality. I can do the opposite, so for example the terrible consequences of ratcheting up tensions with Russia over moral opposition to th people that see working with Russia as morally beneficial within a very complicated geopolitical context, or Kissinger bombing the military supply routes of the communists that were illegaly stablished outside the legal warzone. it was ineffective because Kissinger waited too long because the political capital he would have needed was demo0lishd by the left, by people who wer simply against the US and did not care about the consequences of allowing th communists ther to prevail (the ensuing genocide).

Forgive my weird spelling. a molecule of dirt has lodged itself under the “e” in my keyboard. Fucking capitalists, or whatever.

And finally, here’s why I have become radically anti-commie:

There is an important reason commies cannot ever bring their arguments into the realm of reality, fully. Like it has happened to me here with a person of the advanced intellect, for example, of Mr Reasonable. If you press a lefty into reality deep enough, they will bail out and bring up some unrelated matter.

Because if they brought the arguments fully into reality, something would become apearant: the answer to the question “what do you want?”

For a capitalist it is quite clear: the good things in life. Then you can pick apart moral situations that arise and what to do about them, because you are clear in what you want.

For a communist, it is also clear but much darker: for nobody to succeed. It is weird and anti-natural, and the consequences of it if played out fully in reality would be absurd, so commies cannot allow themselves to fully encounter the driving desire.

In a nutshell.

Look at promethean: within 2 posts he first bashes a kid who sacrificed his life in a burst of bravery in the face of a life and death situation, and says he would grab a fat kid for cover as his life is more important. Never mind that the motivation for such bravery is for from necessarily to save others or save anyone, though it might well be, I think that part is irrelevant almost. That P made it about whose life is saved already says something. Then he says to me, in what seemed to me to be all honesty, is there anything good inside of you?

Commies do much better in abstract theoretical arguments, where hypothetical moral tenets are moved around and theoretical details of base frameworks of systems are hotly debated. When brought to the theater of the real, the primary emotion one encounters is indignation, being offended. It is perceived almost as unfair.

We republicans are much more blessed in that way. It is given to us to live and operate in the world of the real and what is actually happening. I think what socialists resent us most for is that evident freedom, along with the joy it brings. To live, as Christians might say, in God’s world.

The realy reals.

We all know now that capitalism doesn’t make the best products anymore. It’s evolved to planned obselecence. I can’t buy any T-Shirt on planet earth that doesn’t get destroyed within a few months anymore, but I’m still wearing T-Shirts from 24 years ago.

Capitalism as it used to exist, doesn’t exist anymore.

All of you defenders of capitalism are harkening back to a bygone era, the golden age of competition.

It doesn’t exist anymore.

Cue the unrelated matter:

Lol, am I good or am I good?

it’s only for the fact that you lack experience in matters that truly question one’s courage that i overlook this critical misunderstanding of what bravery is.

the fat kid was acting reflexively and hadn’t given a second of thought to the gravity of what he was about to do. something more akin to a dumb animal instinctively defending its young than, say, a soldier dedicating his life to military service or a missionary serial killer on a campaign to kill cops. and while these two examples are far more exemplary of acts of bravery and courage, they’re still not necessarily intelligent. the reasons why each of these types dedicate their lives to these things could be utterly confused and when more closely examined, the mark of a naive and infantile mind that overestimates the importance of the cause they are dedicated to and/or the results that would follow the success of their deed. a soldier might be fighting for a country of ungrateful idiot citizens run by a corrupt and incompetent government… and killing a few cops could very well have the opposite effect the missionary serial killer desires; now cops are armed even more and given more authority, etc.

still the elemental difference is there; to be truly brave one must have thought long and hard about what they are doing, must be aware of big sacrifices that will be made, must be required to make big sacrifices (some are too mundane and ordinary to have anything great to sacrifice), must engage in an internal argument with themselves about the merits of their deed, must experience great moments of doubt which are then overcome by a lust and love for doing what they believe is right.

these things are not expressed in a snap decision at some unexpected time to tackle a guy with a gun.

would it be entirely unwarranted if instead, the fat kid thought ‘hey, i’ve decided that my life is more important to me than my classmate’s… and i’m not convinced i’d be able to disarm the shooter, anyway.’

would we call him a coward if he thought that? no. we might agree with his sound reasoning, understand him, and while we’d still see the event as a tragedy, we’d not have any hard feelings toward him for not trying to be a hero.

i wonder if this constant media coverage of not-so-heroic acts in the news is purposely depreciating the meaning and value of courage for the purpose of making ordinary people feel special when they jump in a pool and save a drowning dog or something. just saw a TEN MINUTE news clip honoring some guy who saved a drowning dog. now of course this was a good deed, but was it deserving of a full ten minutes? i dunno, maybe the network had ten minutes to fill for lack of better stories.

lol… now what would be hilarious is if the parents of the fat kid were interviewed, and instead of showing childhood pictures and talking about how he was such a great kid with a pet hamster and a wonderful sense of humor that everybody loved who always helped his handicapped aunt go grocery shopping whenever she needed it, they went on a five minute rant about how stupid he was for doing what he did and getting himself killed.

where are those news stories?

nah… it’d never happen. usually relatives of ‘heroes’ like this love to bask in the attention and solicit sympathy from everyone to feel sorry for them so that they can gain a privileged advantage over other ordinary people who’s kids didn’t get killed for doing some asinine thing. i guess the next best thing to being a dead ‘hero’ is being related to a dead ‘hero’. you can sometimes manage to take a little credit for the heroism, ya know? hey, i was his mom… he got his hero genes from me. camera flashes and reporters storm the front porch

fuck outta here with your ‘hero’ shit. you wouldn’t know a hero if he came up and… and, did something heroic and stuff.

Alright there big guy…