Capitalism has shown that it's war

[Ecmandu]

Capitalism and capitalists have no desire to simply compete in the marketplace.

For example: why are we at war with Afghanistan?

We don't want them to use their own resources in a capitalist society... their resources? Heroin and lithium, you know lithium? The stuff that charges all of our electronics ...

Afghanistan has the worlds best deposits of lithium.

Afghanistan has the worlds best supply of heroin

I hear people try to intelligently discuss capitalism as if there's anything to be said that isn't about a shell game.

Khidafi was murdered because he wanted Libya on the gold standard.

Terrible guy right? No, he was a fucking Saint.

All capitalism cares about is monopoly, and if they can't win in their own game, they turn it into militarism.

The capitalist experiment is over, it's a weed to pluck from the ground.

What works for people is a liberal democracy.

[Prismatic567]

I am a Yin-Yang person.
I do not believe in 100% of or the need to be dogmatic to any specific ideology.

Other than ideology that are determined to be evil, we should not ignore the range of ideologies with good and positive potentials.
Thus we have should not ignore capitalism, communism, etc. completely but rather extract the positives from whatever ideologies and blend [complement] them within existing conditions and constraints of SWOT to maintain a consistent dynamic optimality.

What is more critical is for humanity to operate from bottom-up [individuals] rather than to be imposed top-down on everyone.
In this case, it meant developing the full potential of each individuals and let them co-operate on whatever is necessary and thus enabling the optimal ideology-mix to emerge.
Developing the full potential means increasing the IQ, EQ, spiritual quotient, wisdom quotient, philosophical quotient, whatever relevant quotients via the effective neural algorithm within one's brain.

[Ecmandu]

I am a Yin-Yang person.
I do not believe in 100% of or the need to be dogmatic to any specific ideology.

Other than ideology that are determined to be evil, we should not ignore the range of ideologies with good and positive potentials.
Thus we have should not ignore capitalism, communism, etc. completely but rather extract the positives from whatever ideologies and blend [complement] them within existing conditions and constraints of SWOT to maintain a consistent dynamic optimality.

What is more critical is for humanity to operate from bottom-up [individuals] rather than to be imposed top-down on everyone.
In this case, it meant developing the full potential of each individuals and let them co-operate on whatever is necessary and thus enabling the optimal ideology-mix to emerge.
Developing the full potential means increasing the IQ, EQ, spiritual quotient, wisdom quotient, philosophical quotient, whatever relevant quotients via the effective neural algorithm within one's brain.

We're both talking over each other when we mean the same thing; except yin yang, I don't believe that.

Capitalists have 0% interest in competition, all they care about is corporate welfare monopolies. Which they are getting.

I want to explain democracy for you:

It's defined as "something comes to a vote, and the majority wins"

Now here's the rub, and the other point you made about enlightened society:

It's impossible to have a democracy without an educated electorate.

So actually, prismatic, we agree not only about the individual mattering, we espouse enlightened society in that context.

Now, about your yin yang... for example, I don't buy that an infinite number of people need to be in hell forever, in order for an infinite number of people to be in heaven forever. I find the universe more positive than negative ... like how matter survived all the collisions with anti matter, and reigns supreme. Like I said, more positive than negative.

That's not yin yang

[barbarianhorde]

Evolution is kind of warlike.

Fukuyama said we are at the end of evolution. Or history, whatever. Same thing.

He also favours liberal democracy.

Maybe you're right. Maybe capitalism is over.

[Gloominary]

Capitalism is an ideology, all by itself it doesn't care about anything, it's people who care about this and that, or don't care, and lo and behold, people with money virtually invariably want more, and to them, it doesn't matter so much how they made their money, or how they will make their money, so long as they get to keep making it.

[Gloominary]

everyone likes money, in the US, they like money, in India, they like money, in China, they like money.
The capitalists like money, and even the people who say they don't like money, like money.
So bet on money over ideology every time and you'll be rich.

[Karpel Tunnel]

All capitalism cares about is monopoly, and if they can't win in their own game, they turn it into militarism.

I don't disagree but I want to focus on something else. I think there is something inherently modular in the metaphysics of capitalism. IOW it leads to an inherently reductionistic and modular view of 'things' 'ecosystems' people. Why? because it wants everything to be buyable and sellable, since this gives the capitalists more to work with and skim money (value) off of. So where capitalipsm is things will be more likely to be viewed in reductionistic modular terms. A person will become viewed as a bundle of chemical machines, so one can sell chemical machines to them. They will be less likely to be viewed as interconnected parts of human ecosystems where suffering, for example, is seen as systemic, rather than an individuals broken parts.

Capitalism does not want a commons. It wants to reduce commons into parts that can be sold and profits skimmed off of.

People and other life forms will be viewed as genetic machines, with modular treatements and tweaking.

Ecosystems will be seen as batches of parts not wholes. And those parts will be monetarily values, not relationship valued.

India barely kept the capitalists from claiming they owned the right to neem trees.

Right now they are selling information about you: facebook for example. You are not selling it. They are. You are batches of code choices and they sell them to other capitalists.

They want to sell the air and the water and I think it was Bolivia that just managed to hold them off, for now on the latter.

They want to replace everything with what they have the rights to: everything. Via nanotech, genetic modification, terraforming, they will replace things that are not problems, so that everything is owned and their patents cover everything.

'everything is pieces, individuals are separate monads, everything is parts to be tweaked, not wholes to be treasured.

You would think an economic system would be metaphysics neutral, but it's not.

It is a religion or creates one over time as won considers how to reduce everything to parts and modular systems to increase the purvue of markets and get everything owned.

It is anti-holistic, reductionist, anti-ecosystem, anti-relationship, anti-spiritual, anti-communal, anti-tribal, anti-internal relations, materialistic (in both senses) and nihilistic.

Now note: some of each of those qualities i just listed can lead to good insights and good things and even enhance relations and life. But this is capitalism's metaphysical bias, which is out of balance. And it is currently the greatest threat out there. It is implicit in capitalism that everything you love can and should be tweaked and replaced and sold and bought and is ultimately empty of value, just a shuffling of dead parts.

[promethean75]

^^^ that was a fantastic post.

[Pedro I Rengel]

I disagree that the opposite of materialist is spiritual, or the opposite of modular holistic or ecosystemic.

But let's consider the charge of modularism. I see it and have seen it happening here, on this forum, for years, with no money exchanging hands. Thinkers, like yourself, modularize their ideas and propositions, break them into batches and units that are to be interchanged and defended on their own ground. Any attack or challenge to the module is seen as an existential threat... to the module. And then everything, and anything, is to be brought in from outside the module to defend it. From you are a capitalist pig to your mother is a whore. Morality excels at this function.

But the point is, no money changes hands. It is an attittude freely undertaken and vigorously pursued.

Coimically, it is this, modularism, that leads to holisticity and ecosystemism, not away from it. As the wars rage, it becomes clearer and clearer to the modularists that there are specific things outside each module well suited to defend it. Other modules, also being defended in their own right.

Whereas stock traders, for instance, the ultimate skimmers, are most likely to view the world as an impenetrably complicated and interlinked situation of situations, and each "module" or idea they have about it an admitted simplification undertaken to aid in a task where certainty, due to the largeness of the situation, is structurally impossible.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I disagree that the opposite of materialist is spiritual, or the opposite of modular holistic or ecosystemic.

I am not sure I was saying they are opposites - I was writing on the fly - just that the first, if out of balance, undermines the second in those pairs. And in particular, capitalism undermines the spiritual because of its particular take on materialism. I could have added something about functionalism vs....hm....jeez, I wanna say being(ism). Capitalism will happily Ship of Thebes everything. It's like that old thing about whether the transporter in Star Trek actually transports or makes a copy somewhere else. Capitalism does not care about the difference. I certainly do, however, and I'm not getting in there. (none of which means I want communism)

But let's consider the charge of modularism. I see it and have seen it happening here, on this forum, for years, with no money exchanging hands. Thinkers, like yourself, modularize their ideas and propositions, break them into batches and units that are to be interchanged and defended on their own ground. Any attack or challenge to the module is seen as an existential threat... to the module. And then everything, and anything, is to be brought in from outside the module to defend it. From you are a capitalist pig to your mother is a whore. Morality excels at this function.

Didn't quite get this, though it sounds interesting. Could you come at it another way?

But the point is, no money changes hands. It is an attittude freely undertaken and vigorously pursued.

Sure, these things are not dependent on the exchange of money. You don't need formal capitalism to either have this metaphysics or have the lack of balance.

Coimically, it is this, modularism, that leads to holisticity and ecosystemism, not away from it. As the wars rage, it becomes clearer and clearer to the modularists that there are specific things outside each module well suited to defend it. Other modules, also being defended in their own right.

Still not sure if I follow, but modularity is not wrong, neither is reductionism. These can be very useful. It's the balance point and worship I am concerned about.

Whereas stock traders, for instance, the ultimate skimmers, are most likely to view the world as an impenetrably complicated and interlinked situation of situations, and each "module" or idea they have about it an admitted simplification undertaken to aid in a task where certainty, due to the largeness of the situation, is structurally impossible.

They are not producers, they are just skimmers. They are not creators, but reap as if they are.

[Meno_]

Capitalism and capitalists have no desire to simply compete in the marketplace.

For example: why are we at war with Afghanistan?

We don't want them to use their own resources in a capitalist society... their resources? Heroin and lithium, you know lithium? The stuff that charges all of our electronics ...

Afghanistan has the worlds best deposits of lithium.

Afghanistan has the worlds best supply of heroin

I hear people try to intelligently discuss capitalism as if there's anything to be said that isn't about a shell game.

Khidafi was murdered because he wanted Libya on the gold standard.

Terrible guy right? No, he was a fucking Saint.

All capitalism cares about is monopoly, and if they can't win in their own game, they turn it into militarism.

The capitalist experiment is over, it's a weed to pluck from the ground.

What works for people is a liberal democracy.

Totally agree. A bit of historical determinism helps .

Full blown capitalism began in the 19 th century and wars have been the rule of thumb.

Wars can not any more be very instrumental without destroying everything worth fighting for, therefore , as predicted in 19th century England, with the oncoming decolonialozation, only a total world capitalization would work.

The before after scenario became instrumental only with two compatible elements, that are: the defeat of Marxism and the high tech development adapted to the fear of. comparable and. compatible uncertainty.

Such infusions of fear helped to bring about accepting an unnoticed major revolutionary world transformation.

Welcome to post modern modernity!

[Meno_]

Capitalism and capitalists have no desire to simply compete in the marketplace.

For example: why are we at war with Afghanistan?

We don't want them to use their own resources in a capitalist society... their resources? Heroin and lithium, you know lithium? The stuff that charges all of our electronics ...

Afghanistan has the worlds best deposits of lithium.

Afghanistan has the worlds best supply of heroin

I hear people try to intelligently discuss capitalism as if there's anything to be said that isn't about a shell game.

Khidafi was murdered because he wanted Libya on the gold standard.

Terrible guy right? No, he was a fucking Saint.

All capitalism cares about is monopoly, and if they can't win in their own game, they turn it into militarism.

The capitalist experiment is over, it's a weed to pluck from the ground.

What works for people is a liberal democracy.

Totally agree. A bit of historical determinism helps .

Full blown capitalism began in the 19 th century and wars have been the rule of thumb.

Wars can not any more be very instrumental without destroying everything worth fighting for, therefore , as predicted in 19th century England, with the oncoming decolonialozation, only a total world capitalization would work.

The before after scenario became instrumental only with two compatible elements, that are: the defeat of Marxism and the high tech development adapted to the fear of. comparable and. compatible uncertainty.

Such infusions of fear helped to bring about accepting an unnoticed major revolutionary world transformation.

Welcome to post modern modernity!

Parting shot: It took the U.S. about 50 years to devalue the gains made of total capitalization of all gains made from battles, whereas the English lost value in hundreds of years.

Maybe that proves something.

[Karpel Tunnel]

An interesting book is....
https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance ... 1610395697
with her idea that surveillance capitalism is a specific form of tyranny quite different in nearly all aspects from totalitatianism - which she argues was itself hard for people to conceive of as when totalitarian governments were coming into power in the 30s.

This behavior modifaction, soft tyranny, is a threat in many ways people are not ready to notice or take seriously. It's a huge book, well researched, and I like how she drew connections between Skinner's work and 'utopican' ideas, and what the current social media monopolies are actually carrying out. IOW the crass no longer popular pure behaviorism of Skinner is, despite its philosophical (let alone moral and practical implications) weaknesses, is actually being used consciously and with great effectiveness to undermine freedom, rights, individuality, social connection, the ability to think, the ability to initiate ideas, the ability to choose.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... e-facebook
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/ ... democracy/

[Jakob]

Socialism, which every monitoring company like Facebook is trying to enforce by deleting every account that isn't against the elected president, is where people can't simply get hired for a wage and on top of that of that have their freedom, but where peoples worth like the slaves of Giza, is measured and defined entirely in what they produce for the state.

People think they will get "free income". What they will get is sustenance level goods for the price of being legal property of the state in every way.

This is the way it is in existing Socialist states, it is a direct result of mobs wanting stuff they didn't earn and being ready to sacrifice all honest people around them for it to the cabal.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Socialism, which every monitoring company like Facebook is trying to enforce by deleting every account that isn't against the elected president, is where people can't simply get hired for a wage and on top of that of that have their freedom, but where peoples worth like the slaves of Giza, is measured and defined entirely in what they produce for the state.

Which is why I want something that is neither of what we are told are the only two choices. I think this is one of tyranny's main tactics: you have to choose between A and B. And generally they are happy with either choice, but like having us think that if only we can get A for a long time or B for a long time they won't be pulling our strings. Facebook does tend towards the left, though they may have helped get trump in via their algorithms, since triggering fb activity made them spread his positions widely and also confirme both Protrump and ProHilary biases. But fb is part of the oligarchy, which is capitalist with the new digital tendency towards monopoly (google, amazon, fb...etc.) and the new kinds of social control through surplus data behavioral modification. We are not heading towards the Soviet Union. We are heading towards zombie smile dystopias with plenty of products and less need for violence and secret courts to maintain control. People younger than you are utterly addicted to media that have made them less than human. You won't need a stasi to keep them in line. Nor will one need a Hitlerjugend. The personal (control) is political. It's no wonder zombies have taken over as the symbol of the end of things and the nightmare creature. On some level we know, even the zombies themelves, what is happening.

[Jakob]

Trump wants you to be free, to think for yourself, to produce and to be happy.

Social media monopolies are going directly against that. All of their power is aimed, has been and is, against Trump, against free elections, against the Electoral College, for racial thinking.


Why?
Because the only way to get a real monopoly is by eliminating the power of people to launch enterprises.

They want you to be obsessed with the thought-sins of your fellow citizens rather than with the unelected FBI bureaucrats trying to overturn election results. Each day you spend without rebelling against your bureaucratic institutions screwing your over, is a win for Socialist tyranny.

[Jakob]

I fear I can't expect of you to look at social media content with a fair mind.

I also fear that if Id give you the assignment to find out which accounts have been banned, you'd not be able to find out, because you'd refuse, because of social media conditioning, to enter the websites that give you those lists.

Obviously the sites that provide such lists have themselves been blacklisted.
It is all very painful to see how helpless so many humans are in the face of some pretty basic manipulation.

[surreptitious75]

People younger than you are utterly addicted to media that have made them less than human

I think this is for two reasons - firstly they have never known the pre digital age so for them it is just the norm and not at all unusual
And secondly the medium the technology references is an eternal one that never switches off which makes it perfect for addiction
Not only that but they can access it twenty four seven wherever they may be and which makes it even more perfect for addiction
This latter distinction makes it different to other types of addiction that have a limitation upon them due to lack of accessibility

[Karpel Tunnel]

People younger than you are utterly addicted to media that have made them less than human

I think this is for two reasons - firstly they have never known the pre digital age so for them it is just the norm and not at all unusual
And secondly the medium the technology references is an eternal one that never switches off which makes it perfect for addiction
Not only that but they can access it twenty four seven wherever they may be and which makes it even more perfect for addiction
This latter distinction makes it different to other types of addiction that have a limitation upon them due to lack of accessibility

Yes to the above. It has no stigma, yet, like smoking in the 40s say. It can be done anywhere and is. It is free, more or less. It is also necessary, at least, almost. IOW since you often need to or are expected to use various parts of social media in school and work, at the very least the internet it is an addiction that carries the extra problems of addictions to things like food. You cannot stop eating food, so it makes it trickier than say alcohol or narcotics, where you can have a life with none of it. It is also designed by cognitive scientists to be addictive.

It also forms brains and social bonds to make them different from previous generations. Their sense of self is not like previous homo sapiens. Of course their have been changes in this in different periods and in different cultures, but now we are shifting to a sense of self that is more purely surface. I am how I am presented and present myself period. We are watching the death of something once integral to being human.

[Pedro I Rengel]

From Seeking Alpha

Project Libra

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is recruiting dozens of financial firms and online merchants to help launch a crypto-based payments system, WSJ reports. Users would be able to use the digital coins to send payments to each other and make purchases both on Facebook and across the internet. Another idea under consideration is rewarding Facebook users with fractions of the currency in exchange for looking at advertisements. Seeking total investments of about $1B, Facebook is talking with Visa (NYSE:V), Mastercard (NYSE:MA) and First Data (NYSE:FDC) for money that would underpin the value of the coin and protect it from wild price swings.


Didin't I tell you man? Google goes first. The clarity of mind indicated by project Libra. If you choose government, obviously the next step is the banks. That's called digging your heels in.

Ain't nobody at Google got this level of clarity.

[Pedro I Rengel]

The banks man. Let's not forget, the censorship went from annoying to serious when PayPal and Mastercard started banning people.

That was the Rubicon.

[Pedro I Rengel]

I ain't too worried though. I have learned about socialists that they are feeble minded and self destructive.

It is not the workers that have to get their shit together and start making capital. It is free men. Stop bitching about unfair conditions and make that cash money.

It used to be "ok socialists, why don't you make your own factories?' Now it is "ok capitalists, why don't you make your own factories?"

[Pedro I Rengel]

A lot of people are missing the pig for the flies.

[promethean75]

I have learned about socialists that they are feeble minded and self destructive.

the socialist should be the atheist/materialist who after finally recognizing the absence of any moral teleology or purpose for man's existence, sets before himself the task of creating a morality from the bottom up. so he's basically attempting to do a missing god's work; finding and establishing a foundation for any possible complete morality to follow. this is to say, if there is going to be a morality, it has to start here, or it cannot become anything substantial. as long as the class conflict exists between bourgeois and proletariat, they are morally incompatible because they are enemies at the most fundamental level. so i don't think most really fully understand the implications of what capitalism creates in terms of deeper, more philosophical problems.

now i'm okay with all this, but i'm afraid that most others who would also claim to be okay with this, would in fact be horrified by some of the things that might rationally follow the logic of this problem taken to its greatest extreme. they don't quite understand what it means to say 'we are fundamental enemies who can have no moral obligations to each other', and it is not enough to get around this by simply saying 'ah but that's what we have laws for'. fuck those laws. let me repeat: THERE IS NO MORAL CONTRACT between bourgeois and proletariat, regardless of what artificial rules society comes up with (to preserve the present order of things). this conflict precedes any of this law making and invalidates all of it.

so usually a capitalist is someone who hopes these artificial and ethically exempt civil laws will stall the proletariat's violent revolt long enough for him to make a little money for free before he dies. and the proletariat is the one who is looking blankly at all the other proletarians and asking himself 'why are we still allowing this to happen?', to which the other proletarians respond 'because we can't seem to get organized, get our shit together yet'.

but you can't understand the logic of the socialist unless you are able to switch perspectives and observe the capitalist from the point of view of the worker. only then will the thesis begin to make complete sense... something so obviously true that it needn't even be called philosophical. you don't need an IQ of even 100 to be able to ask the question; what is this guy doing here, and what is he needed for? forget the fact that he can be here... we're asking why does he have to be here... and we find, after some closer examination, that he couldn't be less important in the chain of production. but not only that. in addition to being nothing, he's actually something like a black hole that sucks in and consumes all energy around it without giving any return. in this sense the capitalist is a negative balance. not just useless in the way of just 'being there' and not affecting anything. this guy actually absorbs the productive life force of everyone around him and depreciates the value of all of it. like a metaphysical parasite that creates nothing and consumes everything.

[Pedro I Rengel]

" so he's basically attempting to do a missing god's work"

Is there something lower than contempt?