Well, following some ideas from USSR
i must say that democratic socialism/communism is in fact a reallity.

We all aware of people that dont want to contribute to the whole, those people who care only about themselfs
well USSR found a solution, to offer better "things" to those who contribute.
Some may say it goes against the equality, while facts are that it is not.
For excample a person work in a factory, a hard physical job, he works only 5 hours a day, 4/5 days a week
while administrative job, the sort of jobs that dosnt require much affort, the workers must work 8 hours a day
for 5 days a week, if they want to gain the same options as the industrial workers.
Same thing goes to jobs that no one wants, such as garbage removing personal (you know, those
who clear up the garbage containers on the streets), it is safe to offer them a spacial option
for this sort of job, for excample, after 1 year in such job, you can choose to get an appt' somewhere you like
or to get a car for a spacial price, just 2 excamples here., i bet there is much more to come up with.
I bet people will agree to do the most dirty jobs to get something they want, faster
so instead of applying and waiting for 5 years to recive a transfare permit to a different city
you can work for a year doing a dirty job and cut of 4 years of your waiting, i think its a fair deal.
(or to get a car, that is if you want, your choise).
This sort of "reward" sistem protects the equality of all people, while keeping the economy running.

Now to next problem to deal with, people who go to work yet dont do anything
and as no one can kick them out, they just spend all day doing nothing.
We can use creativity here to solve this issue, for excample:
Every manager must give a rank to his workers, to avoid corruption, if for excample a worker recive
5\5 stars after 6 months, he is then transfared to a place that requires a "boost" (a new factory for excample)
where there is a new manager, if this new manager ranks the worker with 1\5 stars
this worker is then summond to a spacial meeting where he will explain why he recived 5\5 in one place
and 1\5 in other place, and from there it will be desided to what to do with this worker.
If it was noticed that he is just a lazy worker, he will then be offered a spacial job (lets say 2 hours a day)
but then he will get very minor baneffits. If the worker is found to have a health problem,
he is transfared to be treated, or to find a suitble job.
If the worker said that he just dont like the job, he is then transfared to start an educational program
where he will learn new skills (the worker will be able to choose what sort of skills he want).
As you can see, no one forces anyone to do anything, the idea is:
"the more you do for your country and its citizens, the more you gain back"
yet even the most lazy drunk worker, can eventualy get all the things that the most dedicated worker gets
the only problem is that it will take him much longer, and while a dedicated worker
will be able to get a new car every 3 years, and to live in a newly built house with a view to the see
to the lazy worker it will take 8 years or more (for excample...)
while a disabled worker who is dadicated to his job, get the same as a strong smart and healthy worker.
The idea is that you choose what to do, and you do it because you like it, not because you are forced to!

now not long ago, i read somewhere that communist/socialist sistem got an economical growth
twise af fast as in a capitalist countrys. If that is true then it wont take long untill
everyone will have a car, a house, a television, a computer, whatever
which is then leads to a true UTOPIA, while everyone are still equal, the only differens is that
one gets it faster then the other, depends on your dadication to the country and to your job.

^ Can someone translate this?

Also, the USSR was a failed state. Why would you ever try to make an argument using their failed practices?

That's a fair criticism, as you are correct that those groups have an explicit commitment to 'go forth & multiply.'  So the same applies, with a nod to your sensibilities - good luck convincing orthodox Muslims, conservative Catholics, orthodox Jews and orthodox LDS members.  I'll let you decide which of those groups will be most easily won over and which whose choices will have the greatest impact.

Me decide? I'm just a humble armchair philosopher king who wishes he knew less about how messy democratic processes are. Heck, I have a very strong feminist streak also, so I am constantly conflicted about my belief that we need to peacefully reduce population planet-wide as quickly as we can. That doesn't fit cleanly with "keep your filthy laws off my body."

Anyway, I suspect maybe I should apologize for the jingoism talk because that's really name-calling and I'm supposed to be an opponent of name-calling. I'm just terribly tired of seeing only the youngest of the Terrible Trio demonized. All three branches deserve extensive critique, and right after we get a handle on this sectarian violence thing, we need to move on immediately to their often-unwholesome ideas about sexuality and reproduction. Given the ancient strength of theology-gone-violent, my pragmatic streak tells me I have no serious hope of living to see any of the major faiths get on board the negative population growth bandwagon.

 

It's all good.  What's a world without armchair philosopher kings?

Here's a few statistics about Earth, 7.5 billions and counting;

No matter what you believe or told to do about population growths;

-- We ran out of energy requirements in the mid 60's.

-- Nations such as China & India have outnumbered their own sustainable capacity through partition and urbanization spreading; the Tokyo density paradox in fact.

-- Africa lags behind.

-- Industrialization in developped countries provide a *balance*.

-- Agriculture worldwide doesn't match the numbers.

-- Socialism distributes wealth locally.

-- Capitalism pulls out foreign wealth for itself.

-- The poor is still exploited by the rich, in both economic situations.

Any religions must squeeze their own propaganda "principles" within the above.

Any political systems must cope with global consequences.

Adapt or react by work (products, goods, services, etc) or lack thereof.

WWIII won't solve it.

 

Explain how your opinions are "statistics" or are otherwise factual.

Simple deductions from statistical projections made by plenty and refered to extensively in, for example... World Population predictions.

I can forge as many opinions as i want, both wrong & right unless proven otherwise.

Start with the above using these particular estimates as valid or probable facts.

 

I see and if the US government says you have to pay 30,000$ in taxes this year, you are free to argue it?

I admire you're thoughts and desire for a utopia like world. Everyone wants it. There is a reason why it hasn't exist and will not exist no matter if it socialist or capitalist, or any system for that matter.  No matter how good of a person you try to be, humans will always 1) Do the least amount of work necessary to gain what he wants. 2) We're self-fish. 3)humans have good intentions, but intentions doesn't mean results.

1) How many students do you know study for an exam 1-2 days ahead of time? We do most of our studying at the night before, unless we have multiple test that day.

What everyone likes is to live super rich, have a mansion, and have fun everyday. I don't think any work will get done that way. Since humans were caveman, everyone was not equal, the clan leaders own everything or a lot of things. There has not been a time in mankind history when everyone had relatively equal material wealth.

If the boss don't push us, or threaten to fire us, how many people will arrive to work on time or finish necessary tasks on time (think duke nukem forever)? Thus we do the minimum amount of work require to get by....even A's students ( because they plan to apply to professional schools). Yes in our mind we would like to do what is best for the country or our nation. But will you pick up more trash per day because it helps the country or because you will be compensation by the amount of work you do or required to do?

 

Socialist or Capitalist are simply reward systems. In theory socialism's work/compensation is run thru central planning. Capitalism’s work and compensation is run thru money or greed. Central planning on paper seem pretty and efficient, but in reality, it is not efficient that all. Central planning works if you can predict and know what is going to happen. If you every run your own business you will understand that dynamics and ability to change quickly on demand is key to success. If every decision was to be approved and to have permission from a Central Command...that command will be swamp in a matter of hours and nothing will get done, because it will be waiting for permission. The needs of the people change instantaneously, from food, shelter, to material goods and entertainment. Central planning works if you know exactly how much food to produce, how much cars to make, etc. Thus it is impractical to set up a system where everyone produces just what they consumed. So what if a hurricane comes or little rainfall occur? That's why Regan said he felt sorry for Mikhail Gorbacev, he had to plan the economy in crazy detail to everything his people needed in years, months, ahead; while US presidents in general just give broad regulation and the economy runs itself on supply and demand.

Having multiple car companies, computer companies, etc doesn't work well with Central planning does it? Central planning tends to consolidate things. So, if you have just one car company, there will be no choices for the people.

That is simply indirect capitalism. The car or the appt still cost resources. So sure, you can make compensation so good that everyone will be trash-men, but you gonna be bankrupt and run our of resources real soon.

I'm not 100% behind capitalism, because look at Enron, Subprime mortgages, CEO compensations. But I also not 100% behind socialism either. The answer to all things lie in a balance.

When you do go to Cuba, don't just follow the "official" tour guide, but go out on your own. Also, be able to speak Spanish or have someone you trust to translate, and do not rely on a provided "official" translator.  I'm sure you will fine some of the most nicest, open-book people on earth and some who just want to get as much $$$ out of you. If you want to know what people really think, ask them in their homes in private WITHOUT anyone else. Also realize that Cuba doesn't allow international news in their country. People there are mostly informed by what government own news media provided. If you can not make an accurate assessment from only one source of information. I don't know why you choose Cuba to study socialism, when some of the Europeans nations like France or even Norway where the banks are actually 100% own by the government. Cuba on the other hand has been run by a single man for a long time....and seems almost dynastic, since he brother is in power now.

Lieu, I now have less respect for you than I do for the shit for brains idiot that started this thread.  I can cherry pick entries and make capitalism look like socialism just fine.  I'll settle for putting the full paragraphs up for comparison.

 

What you picked out of Britannica:

 

What Britannica actually says in that paragraph:

 

Your snippet from Wikipedia:

 

The actual paragraph:

 

This one is an honest quote.  It's actually in context with the rest of the paragraph!  Did it take you a while to find this encyclopedia?  I've actually had a set of these, utter shit when you need real information.  Very little depth, nothing like Brittanica, or even World Book.

 

Since you're quoting Webster too.

The applicable usage of loosely:

 

As to be expected of Encyclopedia Columbia, they don't go into enough detail to make themselves useful, but they'll blow a whole paragraph saying morons on the internet wrongly attribute socialism to just about everything.

 

Your crossing out the other definitions for Socialism doesn't change the fact that all of them say I'm right either.

 

Go away while you still have a shred of credibility.  Assuming you have that much now.

 

I know, I'm a troll.  Blow me.

Strangely there's huge outrage lately in Britain over what some politicians have been spending their Sterlings Pounds on - in fact, it's hilarious to witness (again) how capitalism works out slight differences between revenues and expenses.

Held accountable for or property, you figure it out.

Honesty by proof? Or presumed innocent until guilty.

London is in turmoil, i can understand why - we've been having our fair share of scandals too.

20,000 of which can't cover the accumulated collectively owned and managed debt.

 

 

 

I guess the cognitive dissonance is just too great and you interpret how you want to interpret. You qouting the entire paragraphs never changed a thing.

All of those paragraphs clearly say that socialism exists to varying extents. They describe the essence of socialism - what it is. The first definition in Webster's is that usage of the word. It definitely does not mean a condition or state of society in this usage. That would be defintion 2b. The only thing required to validate my usage of the word socialism is the agreement that what socialism is, in general, is public ownership of the means of production. Except this isn't an agreement with you, but an agreement of language. This usage and meaning is documented amongst dictionaries and collected from sources through encyclopedias.

1. Encyclopedias document the various extents and types of socialism as economic theories.

2. Dictionaries document usage of the word socialism as encompassing these theories (Webster's definition 1 again)

3. Thus the usage of the word as an adjective is a generalisation of socialist economic theories.

 

What generalisation do I get from the theories? Public ownership of any means of production. Dictionary documentation shows this is prominent. This meaning comes across descriptively. It also comes across prescriptively. Thus, that is the meaning I communicate when using this word. Your "generalisation" is more picking a specific version or subset of socialism where everything is publicly owned.

And is anyone ever fooled by a no true scotsman fallacy? You ask for encyclopedia references. Person provides references. Reference "doesn't count" because it's, I quote, "utter shit when you need real information." Not "real information"? Seriously? Also, what does that make of encylopedias when they are subject to the aproval of a single person? The whole point of an encylopedia is to bring in many different sources of information so that it isn't subject to the biases and inaccuracies of the few. As soon as encylopedias are themselves subject to the few, then you have gained nothing. It's going to take a lot more than just yourself to devalue any encyclopedia.

I take it you just can't resist sprinkling ad homs in there too.

 

 

Edit: Darkstar7, socialism is not central planning.

Good Call Lieu-

Jonnan

You read encyclopedia entries that say socialism covers a range of implementations from public ownership of everything but small family businesses to a completely government run centrally planned economy where even the clothes on your back are community property.  You then use that information to say a public fire department is socialism.

 

Proof that education doesn't cure stupidity.

 

Falling back on an appeal to ridicule.

 

Indeed, education does not always cure stupidity.

Yep, but society is the whole cause for rampant stupidity even IF education is minimal in whatever principles supplied by state or economic conditions.

I clocked calculus at 89%, it didn't stop me from using a 4.5461x conversion on jet fuel to decimalize less & more money into foreign supplier bills, though.

Call it the corruption fractals instituted by financial concepts if you want. In general terms, one could even escape verifications long enough to accumulate wealth.

R.I.P -- you died rich and lived to tell about it.

Cure it? As long as you do what you're told who gives a flog? Stupidity far more tolerable than some puffed up wanker who thinks all this Punch and Judy nonsense is real. At least idiots can still enjoy soma and the back page. Capitalism, socialism, call it whatever you need to, as long as you lube up and turn up.

Well one thing you all must remember about education
and that is in a fact a tool that can be used for propoganda
everyone used it, USA, USSR, and i bet all the rest as well
and we cant know for sure when it is used as a weapon and when it is nutral knowlage
same thing with media, it is a tool, used to promote those who own this tool
and as we know, media IS privte, therfore if someone "pays" to the guy that own the media
he then can use it to promote himself (i.e to make himself a strong image)

In addition, just to show my point here
have any of you noticed the fact that education dosnt teaches us things like revolutions
I mean they tell us about revolutions but they dont teach us how those revolutions are started
for excample, how many of you know about HOW Hitler gained political power?
Or who Hitler trully was? (dont get me wrong im not like "all hail hitler" here)
facts are that Hitler was a quiet smart dude, yet "education" teaches us only about how evil and crazy he was
and that is NOT A NUTRAL EDUCATION because it picked one side over another.
Or middle east for excample, why Iran got a bad image? is it because they are evil?
maybe, but have you considered the fact that it is the media, and the educational sistem are the once
who turned Iran into monster?

truth is, that the media in a country such as USA, they are not really free
if they will show images of 10000 iraqi citizens who were mordered during the USA invasion
they (the media) will then be convicted by law as anti american activists or something
or pro terrorism movment, or whatever, the point is that there is no freedom of press.

They dont teach us how to do revolutions, because they want to keep us at bay,
they dont want to provide us with an open mind, so that we wont get any ideas that will risk the goverment
so instead they fill our minds with desires for a faster car, a bigger house, and a yacht
and then they send us to work for those desires.

In other wordes: "We are slaves to desiers implanted in our minds by Media and Education"
Media is private, Education is govermental, well at least most of it.
so our minds are filled with private and govermental interests

the reason why Capitalism is surviving and gaining power (well at least he did)
is that a way was found to manipulate the nations population into working
inslaving citizens to follow desiers that most of them will never achive
(the stick and the carrot strategy)

So the donkey that follows the carrot, he will do his best during his entire life to go forward
towards the carrot, hopeing that one day he will be fast enough to catch it
but we all know how it works, the problem is, that we prefare to ignore it
and beause we dont know how to do anything ales, we just keep doing what we know best

 

You're either too stupid to read, in which case your posting here is a paradox, or you know you're wrong and just can't admit it.  To be falling back on ridicule, you'd have to have an argument that actually went somewhere instead of pretending the words in front of you aren't really there.

 

You are contemptable, and I don't give a shit how politically incorrect it is to say it.

 

Coke, you're ignorant beyond reason, accept it and move on.  You know absolutely nothing about anything.  Your views on our educational system would be hilarious if I had a less caustic sense of humor on that subject.  Instead they're simply annoying.  There are plenty of actual flaws to comment on without making bullshit up out of thin air.  People do not get brainwashed into thinking Hitler was insane.  Even a highschool history class goes much further into the subject than your fantasy version.  Anyone that wants to can pick up a real book at a library and educate themselves too.  They can even pick up your pinko commie literature and read the idiocy for themselves.  You're brainwashed.

Psychoak, get over yourself. The definitions, including those you used, show in plain simple to use words even you should be acquanted with that he's right and you're wrong.

You're inability to deal with adult conversation and standard definitions is a problem with you, not the rest of the world, and no screaming fits about how some esoteric reference from somewhere can be vaguely used out of context to support your conclusion is going to change that.

You're an idiot. We get it. Shut the fuck up already.

Jonnan

Pot, meet kettle.  You escalate an argument to a flame war by skipping the argument and making personal attacks every time I refute your premise.  You don't even stick to the subject.

 

Remember your Rush Limbaugh commentary when I shot you down over the USPS being competative with UPS and FedEx?  I just don't understand anything, that the USPS releases it's numbers to the public and proves they lose money shipping packages in competition with FedEx and UPS was conveniently ignored.  Instead, you made some off the wall comment about Rush Limbaugh not knowing everything, as if that had anything to do with a 70% per unit loss on priority mail packages.  He hadn't even been mentioned.

 

The only difference between us is that I'll admit I'm an asshole instead of claiming to be polite after throwing a barb while ignoring the content of the post.

My apologies people - I should've known he would bring up the *last* argument where he kept posting bs taken out of context and ignoring all factual info he didn't like.

I screwed up. I'm sorry.

Psychoak - I will maintain that the occasional statement that I have formed an opinion of you based on the fact that your posts are nothing but ongoing examples of fallacies, ad hominem attacks, and statements debunked simply by pasting your words into google and finding the actual context you ignored when posting them, is not an 'ad-hominem' attack, but mere rational reaction to your inability to prosecute your case competently.

But let's assume otherwise - and go over things post by post. The fact is, my contempt for you is well developed, but I endeavor to not indulge in namecalling nonetheless, and despite my occasional failures, most of the time I don't. I hope I'm, not rude to others as well - I apologize should it occur.

You? I'm almost sure I could find a post of your's that didn't have an ad-hominem attack on someone. There might even be sufficient posts of your's to be be calculated as a percentage of your total posts in some sane manner - but most of your posts do and I can't say with certainty that I could find a post of yours that didn't. It is your default method - your 'admitting' you're an asshole is completely redundant, you've long established that.

As it happens, I'm fine with competent assholes. I don't particularly care if you are an asshole. The fact is, you're incompetent. You can't marshall facts, you can't recognize fallacies, if the insulting nature of your posts was in addition to your strong arguments I might have grudging admiration but they are mere layered cover for your inability to support your opinions.

Develop competence and no one will care how big an asshole you are. You don't have it.

Again, my deepest apologies to the rest of the thread.

Jonnan

You really are blind.

 

There is not a single shred of evidence supporting your claim that being in favor of public roads or fire departments makes you a socialist.  It's one of the lamest attempts to disqualify the opposition that I've ever seen.  You've marshalled no facts at all, first refuting my counter claim with a denial that anyone had said such a thing to begin with.  Then after I quoted it, you attacked basic logic in a way that would only be sane if socialism were a category.  If I weren't sure you were a left winger, I'd assume you were one of those crazy libertarian anarchists that want to have a government that doesn't do anything at all.  Those are the only idiots I've seen calling public roads socialist, the socialists sure as hell haven't.

 

Being judged by you on the competency of my arguments would be laughable if I hadn't seen such excellence from you in various copyright threads.  Instead it's just perplexing that you can be so petty and dishonest on some subjects while being a model debater on others.

 

Apologize all you want, you're still a dick.