Enlightened Socialism

[Friendly Foil]

Ugh modern society sucks amirite?

[chenGOD]

I've been supportive of the village thing for a long time. You wouldn't have to move to a city to find like minded people with similar skill sets as you could just grow one out of the ground or move the village that best reflects the ideas that your personality wants to advance with. Each village coated inside and out by nature interspersed with cropland (maintained by the bots of course). With the net you can keep up with what all the other autonomous communities are doing. And transport links could be either by air on super efficient vehicles or via the subterranean grid. You won't need to transport vast quantities of manufactured goods or raw materials as everything could be made locally, so the land needn't be split apart and wasted by vast road and rail networks, the air and subtrans should suffice.

Driving is fun, manufacturing a subterranean continental transportation system is hugely I inefficient, as is assuming air travel to all locales.

Your mode of living still presumes trade. Trade begets capitalism.

Personally I don't get why you guys are all hung up in capitalism. As an economic system, it is difficult to improve upon in terms of efficiency.

It's systems of governance we need to be focusing on. And institutions will continue to play an important role in human society.

[vertsk8er419]

Well, the obvious first step is the path to enlightenment of all individuals. This requires a great deal of work, and a huge amount of concentrated effort. This will be an ongoing process that will literally not end until our species ends.This can be solved by a large scale focus on discipline, enlightenment, and empathetic/sympathetic practices.

 

In my opinion, the best form of government is one where it protects the individuals ability to privately choose what is best for them. A lot of things function more efficiently on a small scale. It's similar to the idea of delegation. The entire issue that we face is that our governments that are supposed to be protecting these freedoms end up corrupt and working in the interest of the most powerful.It also means our representative governments need to be reorganized. There is no reason for representation anymore. We have the ability to communicate across the entire earth. We should be holding everything to popular decision. Laws also need to be restructured to make them less convoluted and more efficient as well as more reasonable. Look how much damage drugs laws have done to society. It's a tragedy. It all starts with tearing down representative government in my opinion. People as a whole usually make good decisions in my experience. That is why everyone is so frustrated with our current problems, because most reasonable people can see how insanely these people operating society are governing. I liken it to dealing with an unreasonable person. It irritates you, it confounds you, and ultimately it drives you crazy. I think this is how many people feel when examining our society. It all starts from the top. (government)

 

Another key issue is abandoning the system of having separate countries. I think there are multitudes of negative effects this causes for our species and very little positive. Imagine if we viewed people starving across the globe as our countrymen starving? The issue would be handled much more effectively.

 

As a species we need to be more united. It's an issue though, because so many people view themselves as separate or individual from all those around them. I think it's perpetuated by religion in a way. We are all individual creations of god and whatnot. It's better in my opinion to start viewing ourselves as all being apart of this universe. We are of it. We are from it. We all the same pieces of it inside of us. We at all times are connected to those around us. We are a lot less individual than we perceive.

 

I see this idea very clearly when looking at how individuals react to criminal punishment. Very often it's a tit for tat mentality. "He killed so he deserves to die." Not only is this hypocritical, but it leads to us missing the reality of the situation. If we sentence a criminal to death for murder we lose two of our brothers or sisters instead of one. There have now been two ultimate tragedies instead of one. Very often people don't realize that maybe there is more positive to us mending these situations as much as possible without enforcing the ultimate punishment. People view life as a privilege. This is especially paradoxical if someone is pro-life and pro death penalty. It's human nature to desire retribution I suppose, but I think it is the very base of our nature that still desires this. Killing is killing though. It is never right. Really though I don't believe things like capital punishment lead to a better society. That is what we should be focusing on.

 

But I digress...

 

The obvious thing is that we have more than enough for everyone yet there are those that go without the basic necessities for sustaining life. This is a spiritual problem at its heart. One that necessities good leadership. It's also a technological one. Once we have the ability to provide these necessities sustainably we will begin to see a more socialized organization of society. This is actually started to happen a bit, but there are forces working against it. Choice is an important aspect of this as well. People as a whole need to be deciding what they find important.

 

Obviously, this is a drastic simplification, but organizing society has been one of the most challenging problems for humanity.

Does the topic imply the existence of an ignorant socialism?

 

All human existence is ignorant.

 

tl;dr and no

[delet...]

 

I've been supportive of the village thing for a long time. You wouldn't have to move to a city to find like minded people with similar skill sets as you could just grow one out of the ground or move the village that best reflects the ideas that your personality wants to advance with. Each village coated inside and out by nature interspersed with cropland (maintained by the bots of course). With the net you can keep up with what all the other autonomous communities are doing. And transport links could be either by air on super efficient vehicles or via the subterranean grid. You won't need to transport vast quantities of manufactured goods or raw materials as everything could be made locally, so the land needn't be split apart and wasted by vast road and rail networks, the air and subtrans should suffice.

Driving is fun, manufacturing a subterranean continental transportation system is hugely I inefficient, as is assuming air travel to all locales.

Your mode of living still presumes trade. Trade begets capitalism.

Personally I don't get why you guys are all hung up in capitalism. As an economic system, it is difficult to improve upon in terms of efficiency.

It's systems of governance we need to be focusing on. And institutions will continue to play an important role in human society.

 

 

Here you are talking about nanotechnology and yet poopooing the 'efficiency' of an underground network being built by those same future advances in technology. The rock will just be eaten away and reinforced with some of the resultant paste. I didn't presume trade, you presumed it. I said that everything would be made locally, including as i stated, the village itself. Again 'nanotech' enabled molecular scale construction. The only thing that would be 'traded' if anything, would be ideas, which could be sent in files and would be free. And with the net and everyone interesting to you already around you there wouldn't be much need to travel beyond your arcadia, but you could easily if you want to, it wouldn't be wasteful, it would be a fun diversion.

 

Sometimes i wonder if you actually read my posts chen, at least with a sense of my background of posting on here over the years, as your responses can seem so out of wack with my intent. Perhaps what i am saying contains such a different set of back end inferences to the normal dialogue that it's easy to get lost i spose.

[delet...]

As for driving Chen, i think it's a nice activity. Driving in the city on the other hand can be a waste of time, 'oh god, have to drive to the supermarket/work battle maniacs on heavily congested road just to achieve my objective'. Yet i cannot abide public transport, i despise it.

 

I too fear that one day they'll use the 'safety' of autonomous vehicles to take away our natural right to drive. So i can see why mentioning two forms of transport and omitting cars from my tiny rant might have brought about some paranoia over the idea that i might be against cars. Then again, beyond the hassle of city driving if you saw the number of animals that get slaughtered on the roads outside of the city, it's frightening. Apparently in the north america deer are a real problem for the occupants of the vehicle not just the cars themselves. And think of all the animals both natural and farmed that you'd be flattening in and around the village. Wouldn't you rather be soaring above or speeding below. In your light but sophisticated aircraft you would have a control of speed and direction that would make you unbound to arduous restrictions of those that hold thrall the occupants of the car. And if you have to conform to the restrictive plan of the road network you might as well be whisking along in your private underground pod.

[Audioblysk]

People will always serve their best interest when the last deed is done, it's how we survived and it's ingrained in most every animal on this planet.

 

We are living far outside out evolutionary means and we wonder why our species and mentality as a whole is pretty fucked.

 

Socialism and communistic living are not perfect, just different.

[Adieu]

 

Well, the obvious first step is the path to enlightenment of all individuals. This requires a great deal of work, and a huge amount of concentrated effort. This will be an ongoing process that will literally not end until our species ends.This can be solved by a large scale focus on discipline, enlightenment, and empathetic/sympathetic practices.

 

In my opinion, the best form of government is one where it protects the individuals ability to privately choose what is best for them. A lot of things function more efficiently on a small scale. It's similar to the idea of delegation. The entire issue that we face is that our governments that are supposed to be protecting these freedoms end up corrupt and working in the interest of the most powerful.It also means our representative governments need to be reorganized. There is no reason for representation anymore. We have the ability to communicate across the entire earth. We should be holding everything to popular decision. Laws also need to be restructured to make them less convoluted and more efficient as well as more reasonable. Look how much damage drugs laws have done to society. It's a tragedy. It all starts with tearing down representative government in my opinion. People as a whole usually make good decisions in my experience. That is why everyone is so frustrated with our current problems, because most reasonable people can see how insanely these people operating society are governing. I liken it to dealing with an unreasonable person. It irritates you, it confounds you, and ultimately it drives you crazy. I think this is how many people feel when examining our society. It all starts from the top. (government)

 

Another key issue is abandoning the system of having separate countries. I think there are multitudes of negative effects this causes for our species and very little positive. Imagine if we viewed people starving across the globe as our countrymen starving? The issue would be handled much more effectively.

 

As a species we need to be more united. It's an issue though, because so many people view themselves as separate or individual from all those around them. I think it's perpetuated by religion in a way. We are all individual creations of god and whatnot. It's better in my opinion to start viewing ourselves as all being apart of this universe. We are of it. We are from it. We all the same pieces of it inside of us. We at all times are connected to those around us. We are a lot less individual than we perceive.

 

I see this idea very clearly when looking at how individuals react to criminal punishment. Very often it's a tit for tat mentality. "He killed so he deserves to die." Not only is this hypocritical, but it leads to us missing the reality of the situation. If we sentence a criminal to death for murder we lose two of our brothers or sisters instead of one. There have now been two ultimate tragedies instead of one. Very often people don't realize that maybe there is more positive to us mending these situations as much as possible without enforcing the ultimate punishment. People view life as a privilege. This is especially paradoxical if someone is pro-life and pro death penalty. It's human nature to desire retribution I suppose, but I think it is the very base of our nature that still desires this. Killing is killing though. It is never right. Really though I don't believe things like capital punishment lead to a better society. That is what we should be focusing on.

 

But I digress...

 

The obvious thing is that we have more than enough for everyone yet there are those that go without the basic necessities for sustaining life. This is a spiritual problem at its heart. One that necessities good leadership. It's also a technological one. Once we have the ability to provide these necessities sustainably we will begin to see a more socialized organization of society. This is actually started to happen a bit, but there are forces working against it. Choice is an important aspect of this as well. People as a whole need to be deciding what they find important.

 

Obviously, this is a drastic simplification, but organizing society has been one of the most challenging problems for humanity.

Does the topic imply the existence of an ignorant socialism?

 

All human existence is ignorant.

 

tl;dr and no

 

 

tl;dr nothing substantial to add but thinks pointing out disagreement is important.

People will always serve their best interest when the last deed is done, it's how we survived and it's ingrained in most every animal on this planet.

 

We are living far outside out evolutionary means and we wonder why our species and mentality as a whole is pretty fucked.

 

Socialism and communistic living are not perfect, just different.

 

Our mentality as a whole isn't fucked...

[chenGOD]

Delet: the nanotechnology quip was tongue in cheek. Sorry for any confusion.

[Redruth]

 

People will always serve their best interest when the last deed is done, it's how we survived and it's ingrained in most every animal on this planet.

 

We are living far outside out evolutionary means and we wonder why our species and mentality as a whole is pretty fucked.

 

Socialism and communistic living are not perfect, just different.

 

Our mentality as a whole isn't fucked...

 

he who controls the spice controls the universe ..the spice must flow

 

 

[youtubehd]2AZ0jzeZYZE[/youtubehd]

 

[Adieu]

 

 

People will always serve their best interest when the last deed is done, it's how we survived and it's ingrained in most every animal on this planet.

 

We are living far outside out evolutionary means and we wonder why our species and mentality as a whole is pretty fucked.

 

Socialism and communistic living are not perfect, just different.

 

Our mentality as a whole isn't fucked...

 

he who controls the spice controls the universe ..the spice must flow

 

 

[youtubehd]2AZ0jzeZYZE[/youtubehd]

 

 

 

Indeed.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-fA7r18lP0

 

[Redruth]

enlightened socialist braindance

 

 

amen

 

[Guest No Don't :(]

Why can't we just make it like capitalism but everything is free.

[poblequadrat]

The basis of socialism is simply to make it so that a "stagnant" economy is a good thing. This is a political problem before an economic one, because the problem is how to organise production politically - so that the labour force is employed rationally and not in competition (determining how many hours everyone must work, why and where). Also because production needs to have been socialised in a few places at once so that you can sustain the population without any food shortages - which also leads to the political problem of agriculture and industry in the first world.

 

But anyway, first and foremost the problem of socialism right now is how to organise a political subject that feels that these problems are its own problems, and that that's where actual politics lies. It takes a bit of propaganda work and a lot of cultural work, but someone is going to listen given the disappointment with capitalism and the things people have to go through in the name of "excellence", "competition", "aspiration", and so on.

[MadameChaos]

It would be a start to have a government comprising of people who realise that MPs are civil servants with their primary concern being the good of the people, and not posh twats that run the country.

[Guest]

6-year plans instead of 5 year plans should solve a lot of tricks

[goDel]

Here's an interesting NYT article about a research to what would happen if you just give money to people. The ultimate robin hood socialism, so to speak.

 

Contrary to any philosophy related to the GOP there's actually a positive BUSINESS CASE (yeah, business case alright! ;-) ) to define some minimum income which everyone gets for free. Right out of the box. Or in terms of the aspergers entitlement mindset: people should have the right to have a minimum amount of money. LOL

 

Reasons: a lot of mental problems which typically exist more frequently amongst lower income groups disappear when these people have more money to spend. (ok, not exactly disappear, but the incidence of children developing certain mental issues improves to that of higher income families when just given some money) That extra bit of financial security has a positive effect. (Also, as an obvious side note to all the obamacare naysayers: health insurance is also something which contributes to financial security...)

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/what-happens-when-the-poor-receive-a-stipend/?_php=true&_type=blogs&nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20140121&_r=0

 

Research:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197482

 

 

Conclusions An income intervention that moved families out of poverty for reasons that cannot be ascribed to family characteristics had a major effect on some types of children's psychiatric disorders, but not on others. Results support a social causation explanation for conduct and oppositional disorder, but not for anxiety or depression.

 

The association between poverty and mental illness has been described throughout the world and throughout history.1- 9 Clinicians and researchers have noted the difficulty of untangling the effects of "social causation, . . . adversity and stress associated with low social statuses" from those of "social selection, [which] posits that genetically predisposed persons drift down to or fail to rise out of" poverty.10

[Dale]

Sounds like some people in this thread are not fully aware of the current and future potentials of technology. I recommend chengod reads Jeremy Rifkin's book on the near zero marginal cost society. Also, two words: technological unemployment. This will radically shift the dynamics of capitalism. It's funny to hear capitalist apologists in the 21st century.

[poblequadrat]

Two nice snippets by Brecht on socialism as opposed to "excellence", "growth", "aspiration", “competitiveness”, “selling points”, etc.:

The duty of the individual

In a well-organised State there is no need to continuously talk about the individual's duty towards the State. The individual isn't that overwhelmed by it. He has got an easy life. His errors are corrected without rushing, but quickly; what he cannot do is done by someone else. And if he doesn't turn up, there is always enough people.

On the division of labour

Me-ti said: “The division of labour is, no doubt, a step forward. But it’s become an instrument of oppression. When the worker is told that he must be first and foremost a good car builder, he is being told, for example, that he should delegate determining his pay on other people who know that matter well, good businessmen or good politicians. When the doctor is told that he must be first and foremost a good researcher of tuberculosis, he is being told that he shouldn’t worry about the construction of housing, which is the root of tuberculosis. The distribution of labour is organised so that exploitation and oppression can subsist unhindered, as if that also was a job some people had to deal with.”

I find this so beautiful, especially the virtuous mediocrity of the first text. Socialism is where you don’t need to stand out in order to survive, but where virtue is still promoted, because democracy is taken to the things that really matter (production) and people need to be able to take care of it.

[Uniret]

I used to

[chenGOD]

A: I'm not a capitalist. I'm a market socialist.

B: even in a technological utopia, resources are finite.

C: specialization allows for efficiency and greater knowledge in a field

 

That doesn't mean that one should limit oneself to only knowing about one thing, because there is an inherent benefit in knowledge about many things.

 

Mediocrity is nothing to be celebrated...imagine you live in an apartment building, and the team that poured the concrete for the foundation was mediocre. So they didn't do a proper job of curing the concrete, and 5 years later there are cracks big enough for groundwater to seep through. This cause structural damage, and as a result the building collapses, killing 40 people.

 

Now let's look at specialization. Because of their history with earthquakes, Japanese engineers are among the best in the world. After the 2011 earthquake/tsunami, which was strong enough to move japan 2.4m closer to North America and tilt the earth on it's axis by 10cm, there were only 16,000 deaths, and about half of those can be attributed to people not heeding the warnings for the tsunami. If the same earthquake were to hit LA or Sao Paolo or New York, the damage would be ten times that.

Specialization allows for people delve deep into questions and discover knowledge that is generally not going to be acquired by a polymath. For example, 3d printing was invented by a guy who specialized in layered coating of hard surfaces.

 

I will read that book Bread, although given your infatuation with the zeitgeist movement, it will be with some caution. Expect a full critique sometime soonish.

[delet...]

Wow only 16 K. That's still a lot though because they're japanese and so each has more value to humanity than say a middle american or whatever, *doesn't mention anywhere else lest the PC police state clamps down onna mah free spresion thing, but i can think of a myriad. Because of exactly things like that super specialization and conscientious about their job thing. Doesn't stop them from getting ripped off by corruption from TEPCO etc. But that's humanity par for the course, not limited to japan.

 

So say one japanese person ='s 30 americans

 

Better get your act together americah.

[chenGOD]

Why would you think one Japanese is equal to thirty Americans? You do understand that the vast majority of Japanese (like the vast majority of humankind, including virtually everyone on this board, especially myself) are average right?

[Guest RadarJammer]

i think the prison system could be used to redeem us. i imagine a prison where using your first language is punishable by isolation and learning a new language increases your level of freedom and after learning several languages, you are sent to another prison in another country to teach foreign prisoners to speak new languages. lets say you learn 5 new languages and go to 5 different prisons in 5 countries and graduate 5 classes. FREEDOM and you get to be released into the country of your choice. you can extrapolate a lot of positive trajectory from this i think.

[chenGOD]

I imagine that will cause of a lot of ethnic and racial tensions as people of similar ethnicities band together even in non-stressful environments. In a stressful environment such as a prison...well I can see a lot of things going wrong. Plus it's not easy teaching a language. People can spend lifetimes learning a language.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

Brave New World looks good to me. Everyone was happy in that world. Yeah if you look from the outside it's kinda fucked up, but the thing is you wouldn't know. You would be content, happy, and fulfilled. Doesn't seem like a dystopia to me. This is a Brave New World thread right?