Why do socialists deserve to not be poor?

[Serendipper]

I'll take you up on that, but in the meantime, consider that climate change and minimum wage aren't hot button issues for most progressives, at least not anymore, but try telling them abortion is murder, about black and female privilege, that same sex marriage is unconstitutional, there're only two genders, the holocaust is a hoax, the Jews perpetrated 9/11, and watch them flee to their safe spaces, insult you (misogynist, racist, homophobe, anti-Semite, asshole, dumbass, etcetera), even threaten your life.

Well, try telling them abortion is murder and see what happens, but there is no way to settle that argument. With climate change, they appeal to peer-reviewed research which supposedly settles it. When I cite the peer-reviewed research that says peer-reviewed research is wrong, then they get their panties in a knot, but still don't call me stupid. Conservatives begin each sentence with how stupid I am for not seeing how stupid a min wage is.

One group has an argument (1000s of scientists say so).
The other group has no argument, so insult is their only recourse.

Perhaps when liberals have no argument (abortion is murder), maybe they also insult. Idk, I don't argue abortion because there is no obvious solution. I like problems that have solutions.

And I'm not sure why you have it out for old people, young people are just as likely to fly off the handle, they haven't learned how to control their anger, and they're also far more prone to violence than old people.

Maybe hotheaded young people don't get online and maybe levelheaded old people don't get online, idk, but I can tell someone's generation by their propensity to insult. Compare yourself to Jakob and see my point.

[Serendipper]

@ big jake

socialists and the people the socialists defend and stand for should not be characterized as the same regarding their intent. we tend to identify the lowly and downtrodden as the symbol of socialist theory... so that when we hear them cry 'i'm a victim', we associate the theory of socialism with that indignation; we say 'ah, this theory must be based in ressentiment, for look at all the miserable complainers who envy the wealthy.' but there is a subtle non sequitur hidden behind such reasoning, one which the socialist theorist (if he knows his shit) does not come under the jurisdiction of. and it goes like this: the working class cannot envy the bourgeois unless there is something about the bourgeois that the working class is not responsible for creating. perhaps a personality trait, or a talent, for example. but the bourgeois did not create his wealth... he merely appropriated it, took it into his possession under the permission of a specific kind of civil contract which put laws in place to protect such appropriation and property. very technically speaking, the socialist can't envy the bourgeois on that account because the object of envy already belongs to the socialist. what you call 'envy' is really an intent to repossess what has always belonged to the workers in the first place.


on the other hand, if what he envies is the capitalist's ability to own without producing, he wouldn't be a real socialist, but a farce - which accounts for much of the rabble; the fair weather socialists who would not hesitate to exploit themselves if given the opportunity. such people are not socialists and know nothing of the logic of socialist reasoning. the purpose is not to quench a thirst for revenge, but to modify that specific kind of socio-economic contract that protects the capitalist's right to appropriate without producing anything. it's an incredibly simple premise which conservatives endlessly conflate and obfuscate to over-complicate the matter and introduce multifarious elements into socialism's modus operandi. one such maneuver would be to say socialism is based in envy. of course, there is the anarchist and socialist rabble who declare themselves 'victims' with what N called that righteous indignation, but this conclusion is assuming them all to be moralists. there are some not ignoble or impressed enough to be able to experience envy. immoralists and healthy narcissists, free from all those petty, plebian sentiments that are so human all too human. think spock, che guevara and loki rolled into one.

and i am one such anarchist, sometimes known as bodacious in various anarchist and socialist circles. a renegade philosopher anarchist who prefers the dialectic of a 12 gauge to a well crafted argument, any day. as the good chairman once said but didn't quite say; power doesn't come out of the barrel of a philosophy book.

but nevermind that. just remember this subtle detail; one can't be envied when what they have is not theirs or of their own creation in the first place.

no. socialism cannot be reduced to such trivial mincing and squabbling.

Boom! This guy gets it

[Gloominary]

Well, try telling them abortion is murder and see what happens, but there is no way to settle that argument.

Will do.

With climate change, they appeal to peer-reviewed research which supposedly settles it. When I cite the peer-reviewed research that says peer-reviewed research is wrong, then they get their panties in a knot, but still don't call me stupid.

Really?
That's a conundrum.

One group has an argument (1000s of scientists say so).
The other group has no argument, so insult is their only recourse.

The more informed (or misinformed) ones have lots of arguments.
I don't know how good they are, but they do have them.
For example I've heard them say in the 1970s, climatologists believed global temperature was getting cooler.
They go on to say they were wrong then, so why should we believe them now?

Myself I'm skeptical of climate change, but I haven't looked into it deeply enough to form much of an opinion, however like you I think it's a good idea to have clean air and water anyway.
In any case we produce way too much crap, mostly so the rich can hoard all the wealth, so if the transition to greener energy slows the economy down, good riddance, but I'm digressing.

Perhaps when liberals have no argument (abortion is murder), maybe they also insult. Idk, I don't argue abortion because there is no obvious solution. I like problems that have solutions.

Perhaps.
I just find that if you tell most progressives we shouldn't implement a carbon tax or increase minimum wage, they will disagree with you, but they will tolerate you, however if you tell them we should abolish affirmative action, temporarily ban Muslims, deport illegals/no amnesty, shut down sanctuary cities, or perhaps to a lesser extent the gender pay gap is all women's fault, they will insult you, throw a fit, and if they outgun or outnumber you, they may even try to lynch you, by the looks of it.

Progressives have become highly racialized, particularly in the last couple of decades, and I suppose that's in part because there're more non-whites in the west, and for now at least, most of them vote progressive, so naturally progressives are catering to them.

Class and economics I think are more impersonal, so if someone argues against policy designed specifically to help your race, or sex, they see it as more of an attack upon who they are, rather than on their circumstances.

I also think the media are taking advantage of this, using it to drive a wedge between the races, and sexes, keep them squabbling over scraps, instead of fully emancipating everyone irrespective of race, and sex.

Maybe hotheaded young people don't get online and maybe levelheaded old people don't get online, idk, but I can tell someone's generation by their propensity to insult. Compare yourself to Jakob and see my point.

Hmmm, that may be.

[Mowk]

Define poverty. Are we not social? For the most part, preferring to live in society?

How could anyone who shares in everyone's strengths and weaknesses be defined as poor?

High opinion of humanity in general?

What percentage of us actually produces something and how many "vendors" can be supported?

Think we need more suppliers and less vendors. A vendor should never make more then a producer.

[Serendipper]

With climate change, they appeal to peer-reviewed research which supposedly settles it. When I cite the peer-reviewed research that says peer-reviewed research is wrong, then they get their panties in a knot, but still don't call me stupid.

Really?
That's a conundrum.

You shouldn't be unaware of these things https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ ... ed.0020124

One group has an argument (1000s of scientists say so).
The other group has no argument, so insult is their only recourse.

The more informed (or misinformed) ones have lots of arguments.
I don't know how good they are, but they do have them.
For example I've heard them say in the 1970s, climatologists believed global temperature was getting cooler.
They go on to say they were wrong then, so why should we believe them now?

That's what I asked KT: were smart people wrong then or wrong now?

Myself I'm skeptical of climate change, but I haven't looked into it deeply enough to form much of an opinion, however like you I think it's a good idea to have clean air and water anyway.
In any case we produce way too much crap, mostly so the rich can hoard all the wealth, so if the transition to greener energy slows the economy down, good riddance, but I'm digressing.

global-warming-cartoon.jpg (68.26 KiB) Viewed 12317 times

Perhaps when liberals have no argument (abortion is murder), maybe they also insult. Idk, I don't argue abortion because there is no obvious solution. I like problems that have solutions.

Perhaps.
I just find that if you tell most progressives we shouldn't implement a carbon tax or increase minimum wage, they will disagree with you, but they will tolerate you, however if you tell them we should abolish affirmative action, temporarily ban Muslims, deport illegals/no amnesty, shut down sanctuary cities, or perhaps to a lesser extent the gender pay gap is all women's fault, they will insult you, throw a fit, and if they outgun or outnumber you, they may even try to lynch you, by the looks of it.

Well there you go, you just illustrated my point that when no argument exists (or no demonstrable solution), people fallback on emotional responses. It's no longer about cognitive processes, but fight/flight.

Watch this:

Progressives have become highly racialized, particularly in the last couple of decades, and I suppose that's in part because there're more non-whites in the west, and for now at least, most of them vote progressive, so naturally progressives are catering to them.

You are remarkably levelheaded (artifact of age probably), but you're hungup on a couple dogmas (artifact of socioeconomic status, probably). Not too shabby, but one dogma you hold is the one dogma I hate the most (punishing the poor). The other stuff we disagree on, ah, no biggie; you'll figure it out. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

Class and economics I think are more impersonal, so if someone argues against policy designed specifically to help your race, or sex, they see it as more of an attack upon who they are, rather than on their circumstances.

You could be onto something.

I also think the media are taking advantage of this, using it to drive a wedge between the races, and sexes, keep them squabbling over scraps, instead of fully emancipating everyone irrespective of race, and sex.

I'm not sure what the media is anymore. It used to be 3 or 4 tv channels and a few newspapers, but now I don't know which way to go first for news. There was a news article on google news that I wanted to find on foxnews so I could read the comments, so I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and I'm like, wtf, 10,000 news sites and I still haven't gotten to foxnews.

Maybe hotheaded young people don't get online and maybe levelheaded old people don't get online, idk, but I can tell someone's generation by their propensity to insult. Compare yourself to Jakob and see my point.

Hmmm, that may be.

I tried to find twitter statistics on bans, but searching for age results in young people pretending to be older. It's a difficult topic to research and my motivation to do so is low since I'm 99% confident already.

[Serendipper]

Define poverty.

I'd define poverty as less than $20k for a healthy adult because that about the minimum amount one needs to have shelter, car, phone, food, utilities, etc.

Income less than that figure constitutes 1/3 of workers or about 50 million people in addition to the 180 million who didn't report to the IRS.

So we have 230 million people, or 70% of US residents, with little or no means of supporting themselves without government or family assistance.

Hey, but the important thing is 3 guys have 50% of the wealth. https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... half-of-us

Two of whom have been crusading to raise their own taxes for years, but poor hillbillies won't allow it.

[Jakob]

People with subaverage intelligence, health, talents, gifts in general tend to believe that more gifted persons are "doing something wrong" by being gifted or more driven to accomplish and succeed. Socialism in a nutshell. Thus, it speaks to reason that Socialists are generally dumb people. But given that Socialists are generally dumb people, it speaks to reason that they aren't capable of understanding that, let alone why, this is so. Therefore their "discourse" is, as demonstrated to well by the resident specimens of this reified depravity, predicated on a complete refusal to take in context or to heed empirical and logical forms.

[Jakob]

This relative dumbness, which given it is relative to smartness is actually absolute dumbness, that goes a long way in predicting socialism, is akin to the dumbness that causes an attraction to crime. Though they are different types, they invariably seek each other out. Socialist regimes are indistinguishable from the networks of organised crime that hold sway in their lands - one might say crime is the socialist form of police. This all because both types aren't capable of creation.

[Silhouette]

People with subaverage intelligence, health, talents, gifts in general tend to believe that more gifted persons are "doing something wrong" by being gifted or more driven to accomplish and succeed.

If I ask again "says who?" are you again going to non-specifically generalise "Socialists?" like last time?

Again, you are telling other people how and why they think the way they do. Why don't you actually ask them? - again there were no questions in your posts since my last one, which you ignored completely. I am assuming you don't accept the answers of anyone you actually have asked, and don't trust their ability to be honest to themselves - never mind honest to you, am I correct? You trust your own judgment, so you come up with your own reasons, but if so, all you're doing is coming up with the only reasons you could justify to yourself for believing what they do. This is not good enough.

It's the equivalent of a Socialist trying to imagine why a Capitalist thinks they way they do by concluding that they could only be a Capitalist themselves e.g. if they didn't care about the inequality inherent in the profit system of paying people less than what they earn you (the definition of making a profit is revenues exceeding expenses) and thus all Capitalists are immoral sociopaths. As a Capitalist yourself, you have a different rationale that means you're not an immoral sociopath, right? What if a Socialist were to disregard that and just go with their own judgment that they trust much more? You'd be forever locked into talking past one another.

Is this constant mutual misunderstanding between people going to forever render this subject impenetrable?


I can tell you for a fact that Socialists aren't all dumb people who think gifted people are doing something wrong by being gifted or more driven to accomplish and succeed. Thus the rest of your embellishment falls apart at the first hurdle, but the question is whether or not you have the capacity to understand this and find a way to look into the whole thing more objectively. Otherwise you're just an ideologue preaching to the converted, achieving nothing.

[Jakob]

You are a socialist in the sense that you cant or wont (big difference) escape its narrative. You need me to choose some option which falls entirely in the realm of Marxist thought. You forget everything in the equation except the laborer and the money. Labor, product, users, culture, all that isnt an issue.
Let me put it in a dramatized form.

Capitalist: Lets build this and this and this and connect to that and through that to everything and make a million dollars!
Capitalist 2: Alright lets get started on the blueprints
Capitalist 3: I hear you guys are up to something cool. Need any of my assistance perchance? For a cut of the pie Ill lend you my newly acquired machinery.

Socialist: We takest the m-money Lebowski.

[Peter Kropotkin]

[quote="Jakob"]
J: One thing I found out along the way is that the leaderships of Causes and Social Parties are invariably corrupt. Oxfam spends 90 percent of its contributions on Overhead, which was revealed to go buying Africans for sex.


K: after some research, I found this to be simple not true.... there was a deal where in
one country, Haiti, had an issue and several people were fired but for the most part,
Oxfam has a pretty good reputation.. of course it has been attacked by the right wing
because, well the right wing believes in the negative and not the positive.....
and I am guessing you are getting your information from a right wing site...
as for your blanket statement about the leadership of causes and social parties
"invariably corrupt". I would love some facts to show us this is in fact true....
but the right loves their biases and faith and they don't believe in facts,
so there is that... so please give us some unbiased facts either about
Oxfam or the leadership of causes and social parties being "invariably corrupt"

Kropotkin

[Silhouette]

You are a socialist in the sense that you cant or wont (big difference) escape its narrative.

Yes, it is a big difference, and what makes you assume I can't or won't escape its narrative? Because I don't disagree with it as much as you do?

I merely offer you the opportunity to think beyond yourself, just as I appreciate Capitalism as much as I begin with a Socialist heart - I do not end where I begin. What about you?

I fully acknowledge the reality of the dramatic representation that you offer. There are certain mindsets that yearn to innovate, create, realise and compensate - they must be encouraged. The problem is that in your play, the implication is that they could only be Capitalists. Your narrative will make this difficult for you to accept, unless you escape it: Socialists want to "build this and this and connect to that and through that to everything" too. You just never connected to the human beneath the label. They study engineering, and systems, they are passionate about realising dreams. Crazy huh? Socialists?!! Yes, Socialists. And Capitalists.

The stake is driven deep in between the two, and yet the differences are so few. What does a Socialist society look like? Do they want to physically provide water, farm food, distribute goods and services any less than a Capitalist? Don't be ridiculous. Whatever you call a society, and however any extrinsic reward structures operate, the wants and needs of the people are to be provided. The difference is in how it is motivated.

That's it.

Think on that. Perhaps you already have. Perhaps you assume Socialists are simply an afterthought of a Capitalist society like you suggest - existing only to disrupt from the surface like a parasite. Be just another one of the other indoctrinated swine if you must.

[Serendipper]

Jakob, can you show me one group of intelligent people who identify as conservative?

Enlisted men are more conservative than officers.
Army and Marines are more conservative than Air Force and Navy.
Astrophysicists are more liberal than geologists.
Democratic senators are twice as likely to be in the top 1% of cognitive ability than republican senators.
The most educated states are the most liberal.
The most educated counties are most liberal.
Academia, silicon valley, hollywood talent, NASA engineers, medical professionals are liberal.
The vast majority of notable economists are liberal.

I've looked everywhere and cannot find a relatively intelligent group of conservatives. I assert that they do not exist and that conservatism is conditional upon cognitive handicap.

IOW, if not for dummies, conservatism wouldn't exist.

A brain scan could predict with 82% accuracy whether you are republican or democrat.

journal.pone.0052970.g001.jpg (71.54 KiB) Viewed 10884 times

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0052970

[Jakob]

It never ceases to amaze how sternly Socialists believe that money grows on trees and Capitalists just happen by these trees unfairly to pluck the cash before Socialists happen by. Like how ILPers believe that if Einstein hadnt existed there would have been a thousand other people to formulate his theory.

Socialism is at heart and most succinctly described as anti-meritocracy; a form of idealism that reaches for every possible way to negate the phenomenon of merit.
What any socialist regime does first and foremost is to outlaw talent, and in general any forms of intelligence that cant be easily categorized in terms of designated slave labor, which is all the labor socialism is capable of employing.

[Jakob]

As parasites and nothing besides, socialists thus also always come streaming and pouring into Capitalist countries to suck them dry, and using the resources given to them by capitalists to shit on everything theyve been given and especially on the people that made it happen for them.

Man, I am glad I will never know what it feels like to be a Socialist.

Thank you gods.

[Serendipper]

It never ceases to amaze how sternly Socialists believe that money grows on trees

Money doesn't grow on trees; that's too slow. Money comes from thin air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIxhsF6JLEA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3_Q1SiRN-A

Socialism is at heart and most succinctly described as anti-meritocracy;

That's capitalism which values luck and sucking up over talent.

What any socialist regime does first and foremost is to outlaw talent, and in general any forms of intelligence that cant be easily categorized in terms of designated slave labor, which is all the labor socialism is capable of employing.

Capitalism is the conscription into servitude and the theft of worker productivity.

As parasites and nothing besides, socialists thus also always come streaming and pouring into Capitalist countries to suck them dry,

Brave Sir Robin has trouble reading. People are flocking to socialist countries: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=194766

Man, I am glad I will never know what it feels like to be a Socialist.

What does it feel like to be missing an insula? Constant hate and fear? Oh, yeah, that must suck.

[Silhouette]

As parasites and nothing besides, socialists thus also always come streaming and pouring into Capitalist countries to suck them dry, and using the resources given to them by capitalists to shit on everything theyve been given and especially on the people that made it happen for them.

Man, I am glad I will never know what it feels like to be a Socialist.

My point is that you know exactly how it feels like to be a Socialist when you are a Capitalist trying to figure out how it feels to be Socialist.

And that's all you're doing.

As a lover of wisdom, aren't you interested in the slightest in the possibility of wisdom in the enemy?

Sure, many people are parasites - Socialists and Capitalists alike. Streaming and pouring to suck people dry? How about the justification for profit as revenue > expenses. The purpose of this is to be a legitimatised incentive for the talented to get an unfair advantage - perfect! Now how many other people need to be incentivised and by how many degrees of magnitude do they need to outnumber the talented?
Are you telling me that the talented could provide entire societies with the required goods and services that they helped build... by themselves? What do you do with the countless relatively disincentivised others to enable them to do the legwork to actualise the creations of the talented minority? So far the solution is to dangle poverty in front of them and use fear to force them to sell their labour to the talented, and it works. This is Capitalism. Can it be improved?

You're a philosopher, right? Tell me it can't be improved and why.
When considering the whole picture, all elements of the economy simultaneously - why is incentivising the minority the best for everyone.
Is it worse or better that among the disincentivised majority you may have talented prospectives drowning when they could otherwise be improving things for everyone?

[Jakob]

Ha.

A capitalist has no illusions, He know life is hard, it is do or die.

A socialist thinks of the production process as ganging up and "getting paid".

He pays no concern to the three hundred engineers that went to school, probably half of them deep in debt for it, to design such magnificent machinery, or the brilliance of the architects studying at those expensive institutions, the universities, or the tradition of metallurgy and the countless casualties that went in the process, or any of the magnificent merits that went before his power to work in the factory and do his part, and get paid a quantity of actual buying power which he can freely spend, after taxes.

What I mean is what I said. The socialist isnt a complete literate, he isnt a student of history or an appreciator of human nature. Not a knower of magnificence. He doesnt know his place in the great order of human effort, which is sustained by molecular effort carrying the massive binding forces of the shifting quarks, all of which is unfathomable except through the means of concentrated capital.

I wish we could debate on that level, of the stages of the industrialization of capital. Marx thought it is about the worker, but it is not, it is about the power to create. Mankind unlocks the secrets to his own existence through the vessel of what the Socialist sees as greed, but which is simply gratitude. When man recognizes the investment of power that he is, he ceases to demand, and he begins to forge. By the means of the gifts he forges for his fellow man he forges his own destiny.

'Man made the trains
to carry the heavy load'

That song is really at the core of things. Socialism is "what women want", all movie references intended. It is not what they need.

[Serendipper]

A socialist thinks of the production process as ganging up and "getting paid".

He pays no concern to the three hundred engineers that went to school

The engineers who built the facility were also workers who were exploited. Hello! We're talking a looooooong chain of exploitation just to get to the point of exploiting the regular factory worker.

Hell, I told the story on ILP before of the software engineer who saved the company $1 million, but was laughed at when he asked if he could have some of the savings. Probably the reason it saved the company so much is it found a novel way to further fuck the workers.

I wish we could debate on that level

I wish we could debate at all, but you're a propaganda dispensing robot that doesn't seem to have appropriate relevant reactions that would cause one to believe you've understood anything said.

You're a spilled can of alphabet soup with the curious eccentricity of always managing to spell-out "socialism is bad, mkay" amidst the otherwise random rubble and pompous poppycock you continually regurgitate.

Have you no shame whatsoever? Have you eaten too much aluminum? Have you began any strange new medications? What the hell is wrong with you? A couple months ago you were talking to me like a regular human, the sopranos n shit, now it's as if you're aspiring to be the biggest jerk possible.

Well fine, because I can't imagine any fair-minded individual reflecting on those such as you and Pedro as representatives of your side to be painting anything other than an ugly picture and being a troll with intent to disrupt rather than discuss. IOW, keep up the good work!

The Defamation of Socialism

[Pedro I Rengel]

Great song.

[Jakob]

Serendipper you haven't addressed any of my or Rengels arguments in the past months. You're almost as shameless as Iambiguous in this respect. But all that is par for the socialist course.

Maybe there are socialists who are nodding their heads at your posts. None of them will ever accomplish anything noteworthy. And yet they may feel some recognition. I'm trying to see a bright side to your performance.

I don't have any hope that you will address any of the basic ideas Rengel and I have been explicating. It is clear, you consider creation to be oppression. Okay man. Have a good life with that.

[Serendipper]

Brave Sir Robin, you are a strong contender, but Pedro has the MVP title for now. You'll have to dig deeper and see how low you can go!

Just how bad can you portray your position?

DltLIPtU4AAq2Zv.jpg (104.78 KiB) Viewed 9150 times

[Silhouette]

A capitalist has no illusions, He know life is hard, it is do or die.

A socialist thinks of the production process as ganging up and "getting paid".

An actual Capitalist is intending to make their life easier by making their money (i.e. others/workers) do the work for them, but yes what you say is often true of advocates of Capitalism who aren't actually capitalists but work for capitalists - often you do see them powering through the workload making their Capitalist employer(s) very rich and remaining relatively poor themselves like good obedient slaves. The former doesn't have to be an engineer to start an engineering company or to start a company that requires engineering - this is when you simply hire in the latter to be paid less than they earn you. Entrepreneurialism is a different skill to Management is a different skill to Operations: the first is knowing how things work inter-business, the second is knowing how things work intra-business, the third is knowing the work. The first is something of a creative skill, which even Conservative anti-Socialists like Jordan Peterson admit are the liberals - that is to say, like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, their personal sympathies are socialist even if their professional practices are capitalist - they have a clear love of what they do for its own sake and would have created regardless the economic model. Even people who got rich by moving money around and not actually creating anything themselves, like Warren Buffet, can have personal socialist sympathies. Most of the richest names aren't actually creators at all, just money-movers who only make their life hard by competing so hard to to win the gambling game. There's even a type of personality that supports Capitalism despite not being a capitalist, because they envy them and dream of the spoils that they enjoy but without a creative impulse in their body and often without work ethic. They neither want life to be hard, or to do or die - they want most of all for others to be less rich than they are even if they are not "yet" rich: the capitalist in their personal sympathies, but you might say socialist in professional practice - though I would disagree with that latter part.

In short, this forced dichotomy of yours breaks down as soon as you apply it to real people. It seems very much to me as though you are trying to force practice to fit your theory rather than fitting your theory around the practice. The former is the kind of thing religious apologists do, which fits your non-question-asking preaching, where the latter is the kind of thing scientists do, which is what I as a Socialist sympathiser am recommending to you. So ironically, the realm of those who you are praising as bastions of Capitalism: the engineers and scientists who create new technologies are not dogmatic like your argument here. Basically you're telling a Socialist to be more like they are, but with the label of what they are not. And you advocate using the means of the kind of person you are against - it's all backwards and doubly ironic that you support having no illusions. I am trying to help you here, but I think you would rather reinforce your understanding to yourself than discuss reality.

He pays no concern to the three hundred engineers that went to school, probably half of them deep in debt for it, to design such magnificent machinery, or the brilliance of the architects studying at those expensive institutions, the universities, or the tradition of metallurgy and the countless casualties that went in the process, or any of the magnificent merits that went before his power to work in the factory and do his part, and get paid a quantity of actual buying power which he can freely spend, after taxes.

Unfortunately for your argument, I went to university to study mechanical engineering. I can tell you that there was not a hint of politics or economics amongst my contemporaries, we were all just kids - some of them simply with a love for machines. I had no idea what I was doing, I was just following my strong mathematical and scientific prior trajectory - and you might think it supports your argument that I actually switched courses, but I switched to business studies i.e. the study of how the whole system works under Capitalism - that was much more full of people wanting to get rich than engineering was. There were economics modules in there and even optional ones that I spent on philosophy - the whole thing was just me figuring myself out, because like I said - everyone was just a kid back then: nobody was some kind of capitalist hero like you're trying to make out, least of all the engineers.

What I mean is what I said. The socialist isnt a complete literate, he isnt a student of history or an appreciator of human nature. Not a knower of magnificence. He doesnt know his place in the great order of human effort, which is sustained by molecular effort carrying the massive binding forces of the shifting quarks, all of which is unfathomable except through the means of concentrated capital.

The history department at my uni were lefties - isn't this what capitalists are supposed to be complaining about: that education has been too dominated by the left (an argument for equality of outcome if I ever heard one!)? And here you are saying socialists aren't students of history or appreciators of human nature... the truth is basically the exact opposite. Pretty much everything you're saying is backwards when compared to a concrete look at what is actually going on...

So what will debating on this level do? It will allow you to repeat your indoctrinated ideology over and over, and enable me to correct it in light of reality - the tennis game will continue until we get frustrated and angry, and we will get nowhere...

This is why I offered to leave you to it if you were just here to preach your religion.

[Serendipper]

I'd just like to add that I don't have any problem with people getting rich, but just the exploitation of people to do it.

If you make products all by yourself, or employ machines to do so, then I applaud your getting rich as possible, but one can't get very rich that way. No, it takes armies of employees contributing their productivity to one man for him to amass truly uncountable wealth. Of course, corporate welfare helps too. Also, share-buybacks, accounting gimmickry, fraud rewarded by small fines and wrist-slaps, and a central bank committed to supporting share prices.

Bezos became a billionaire running a company that never made a dime of profit in 16 years.

Musk became a billionaire running a company that not only never made a dime, but burns millions per month.

How do I start a company that burns millions and become a billionaire and then convince all the retards to cheer me for the service while on their way to cash their social security checks?

[Silhouette]

I'd just like to add that I don't have any problem with people getting rich, but just the exploitation of people to do it.

But that doesn't fit with Jakob's narrative, is that allowed?

I think you need him to re-iterate his position a few more times to help you realise that what you believe is something else to what it actually is.