[2017-12-08] Healthcare

[JosieQ]

Explain your statement is what the question mark means. Explain how Snodgrass's setup showing communism is evil shows he's a socialist.

[Nino]

I gave you a quote of a socialist slogan and a link to wikipedia. Were you just not bothered to go there and read

Stalin's most famous use of the concept is in his 1936 Soviet Constitution. He writes that "The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."

Or do you think that taking away 80% of ones labour is and giving it to freeloaders reflects "according to his work" fairly?

Im not sure what point Astrogirl was making but imho
1)A lot of people are brainwashed about communism and socialism - you are conditioned to see red so to say while actually using quite a bit of it in daily life
2)communism (like other religions) is a fine thing in theory - problem is they assumed they can build a post-scarcity society in beginning of 20-th century over a couple of decades (did not go well). And the way post-scarcity society might turn out from capital side - e.g. robots taking over production and making non-robot-owning humans redundant is not gona be 100% happy either.
3)Often communism begins as populism (redistribution of goods not being the actual goal but a means to incite masses to rebellion) and ends up as a dictatorship
4)there *are* a lot of ugly things about capitalism. If Astrogirl is from somewhere in soviet block she (I assume) might have noticed that the people who became capitalists after communists were outsted are.... communists. Believe me , most of the current "oligarchs" are former party members - it isnt about the political agenda it is about power grabbing. So there are *a lot* of people who lost *a lot* during the 90-th so regarding

Ayn Rand WAS a starving child under the communist dictator that took her father's business, you fucking psychopath.

be more considered and use a more civil language.

[JosieQ]

I gave you a quote of a socialist slogan and a link to wikipedia. Were you just not bothered to go there and read

Stalin's most famous use of the concept is in his 1936 Soviet Constitution. He writes that "The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."

Or do you think that taking away 80% of ones labour is and giving it to freeloaders reflects "according to his work" fairly?

Yes I read it. Still don't understand what you're saying. I'm trying, but this makes absolutely no sense to me. How does Snodgrass saying communism is garbage make him a socialist? Not getting it. Your quote doesn't seem relevant.

be more considered and use a more civil language.

Don't tell a stranger how to behave to another stranger. Since we are giving out unsolicited advice. It's absolutely smug and insultingly audacious. Uncivil as I am, I would never dream of correcting someone like their parent in that fashion, even if I knew the person personally.

[Nino]

How does Snodgrass saying communism is garbage make him a socialist? Not getting it. Your quote doesn't seem relevant.

I was not referring to Snodgrass perception that communist is garbage, I was referring to his example of redistribution of products of labor (i.e. the tomato example) and I gave a quote of a famous socialist principle that states that fruits of the labour should stay with those who produced the labour. Idea that said fruits (and tomato is a fruit) should go to somebody who didnt put any labour in is very contradictory to that principle, or others of that kind .

Or take for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_do ... all_he_eat

He who does not work, neither shall he eat is a New Testament aphorism originally by Paul the Apostle, later cited by John Smith in Jamestown, Virginia, and by Lenin during the Russian Revolution.

As I said before communism is not unlike other religions - you can cherry pick it to support almost any view and at the extreme end there are always some atrocities.

Uncivil as I am, I would never dream of correcting someone like their parent in that fashion, even if I knew the person personally.

You are in a public place so spewing obscenities is not unlike shitting in the middle of a street. If you dont understand it insulting to passer bys then really there is no point trying to tell you something is there? So for future referense *please* assume Im talking to Snodgrass and not you, ok?

[JosieQ]

How does Snodgrass saying communism is garbage make him a socialist? Not getting it. Your quote doesn't seem relevant.

I was not referring to Snodgrass perception that communist is garbage, I was referring to his example of redistribution of products of labor (i.e. the tomato example) and I gave a quote of a famous socialist principle that states that fruits of the labour should stay with those who produced the labour. Idea that said fruits (and tomato is a fruit) should go to somebody who didnt put any labour in is very contradictory to that principle, or others of that kind .

It's contradictory to capitalism also. So you choosing to say he's "in tune" with socialism when he's clearly a capitalist, he quite clearly lauds capitalism over and over and over, and you knowing that but saying what you said comes off as snarky. Your posts are very unclear, your point is unclear, you're unclear. Still don't know what your goal here is. Unless it's to say something absolutely pointless and trivial, like that socialism and capitalism share traits? Is that the point? Because if so no duh.

Oh wait sorry you're not talking to me, let me just finish this up real quick omg don't wanna waste your time.

You are in a public place so spewing obscenities is not unlike shitting in the middle of a street. If you dont understand it insulting to passer bys then really there is no point trying to tell you something is there? So for future referense *please* assume Im talking to Snodgrass and not you, ok?

And here you are wasting MY time with repeated smugness! Do stop trying to inform me that I'm being insulting when I was trying to be insulting.

But you're right, I should completely let people who want to steal from others and then call the people they steal from immoral garbage get away with it. They shouldn't be called out for being evil, dangerous hypocrites. Thank you so much for that lesson. You are ever so wise. Turn the other cheek I guess, is that right?

Since we're still giving each other friendly advice, let me advise you that you have a problem with making sense, and also apostrophes. You're welcome.

[Guest]

Nicci is right about the concept of charity, it should be given when somebody has plenty, but often in reality that scene would have ended with the father saying "No, and that's final" and trying to justify it by saying "I do need a wagon loader, not a man with a bad back. If I hired every man with starving children I would not be able to pay for you, my daughter, to have food to eat and clothes to wear. If those children need to eat they can come to my workhouse and they can work extra hours to sustain their invalid father."

He would be wrong, he would be quite wealthy already, and able to do a bit of charity, but he would not. That is what happens over and over again in real life, and that is something that happens in any society.

But in Nicci's example, the daughter imploring her father worked. Sometimes prosperous capitalists do engage in an act of philanthropy.

In the USSR and in China during their 20th century socialist and communist era, famines occurred and the people there starved to death by the millions. I think another inherent problem in communism and socialism is that the concept of charity is replaced by the concept of taking from all to give to all, and when everyone has less and things are in desperation they forget to be charitable and rely too much on government rationing and bread lines, which only go so far.

Contrast with the USA's great depression. People went poor, broke, homeless, and some starved, but they did not starve in the millions and the whole country did not starve in such great extremes. Part of that was from charity, people lose money but some of them were willing to lose more to keep people from starving to death, times were hard but many people in the US made it through. Another part of that was from human kindness, which I think we all feel to some degree on this forum no matter which side we are on in the debate.

After reading Ayn Rand's books I don't think she would let the ten children starve. Her deal is more to do with promoting exceptionalism and the individual, as a means to benefit society more than the concept of collectivism and the group, which in her philosophy actually drags a society down by smearing the most productive and talented people out of a sense of collective jealousy. Think about how many people you've heard talk shit about a public figure, celebrity, or role model you admire and you'll understand where she's coming from.

She uses fictional characters like the capitalist steel company owner, the talented architect, the musician, and the inventor. She makes them the heroes in her stories, and to her those people figure out how to produce a lot of goods and services, make art beautiful, make music wonderful, and advance technology to the next stage. A post-scarcity society would be impossible if we dragged down those people, and by listening to mob rule and the voices of the many, there would in reality be many many voices that slander those people out of jealousy, out of hate, and all while self-righteously proclaiming that they are good people. She calls them the mediocre. She stepped on a lot of people's toes by saying these things.

As for capitalism/socialism/communism stealing or being evil, those types of society all need to reach a margin of revenue in order to be sustainable. For example, in a business. A capitalist, socialist, or communist has to come along first and decide it is worth it to build a business, hire workers, buy materials, and put in a significant amount of their own money for nothing at first.

A worker has to be paid their wages.

The capitalist underpays them quite a bit compared to their productivity. He can't go too low only on the minimum wage allowed by law and the rates of his competitors. He may decide to pay his best worker a higher amount so that they don't quit and join another company. The margin left he uses to keep the business running, buying materials, fixing machines, paying the rent on land if he doesn't own it. His customers expect cheap, quality, goods and services, and he lowers the prices to compete. But sometimes he pulls a sneaky trick and convinces the customers to pay more for his product. The rest of the profit he pockets as a return to his investment and to make even more money, he may be motivated by a lot of things, wealth, fame, a big house, a beautiful wife, the respect of his peers. If the business fails, he loses his investment, and depending on how much money he has left he may fail on the rest of those as well by going completely broke.

A socialist pays their employee a fairer wage compared to their productivity, and undercuts it only on a paper thin margin. By rule of law she may or may not be allowed to go much lower, but she can still go a bit higher if a certain worker is doing well. She has enough to pay her workers, pay the bills, the electricity, and the computers and machines keep running, even though they are getting kind of old. Something needs to change for her to afford to replace them, maybe if she listens to her new engineer her product will do well and disrupt the market. Her customers save up for her product because they need it, and it is quite costly to them. When she goes home she has a pretty nice apartment, a small family, enough to get by. Most of what she makes goes to taxes. She works a hard, 60+ hour work week, a lot of mental work goes into running her business. If she fails she may lose her investment as well, or the government might bail her out if her business is too important to the nation. But she won't go poor, she is a talented, skillful, a survivor. She'll just have to squeeze into a smaller apartment, and hopefully find another job.

A communist pays their employee the wage required by law. He can go no lower or much higher, and his workers have virtually no choice but to stay at his company for a certain amount of hours each day. Sometimes he doesn't have much work for the white collar workers to do so he lets them wander around town while counting them on the clock. But the laborers are needed on the clock, and sometimes much, much, longer. They look tired, they are falling asleep on their lunch breaks, and he is feeling sorry for them, but the quota has to be met or the government will be hanging him out to dry. His customers spend a majority of their whole months' wages to pay for his goods and services, but they have no choice because they need it. When he goes home he has a big house already, lots of food, and lots of perks provided to him. His father was a party leader after all, and they expect a lot from him. If he fails and loses his business a lot of people will be disappointed in him.

There are issues and benefits to each system, and none of them are perfect. Well-read Freemasons know that Karl Marx admitted as much in his pamphlets he wrote that socialism is supposed to lead to communism, and communism was not meant to sustain a nation, but to destroy it, and from all the chaos and upheaval birth a fourth, new kind of system, in order to achieve utopia. He died before he specified what that utopia system would be like, and many equate communism to the utopia by mistake.

Be civil, rational, and make an effort to be unemotional when debating this topic. The lives of billions of people worldwide ride on where we go with this, many people's own personal lives are at stake. It is easy to get heated in an argument, to get overly emotional, and to insult people. It is very hard to try to think of things from different people's points of views, to think critically, and to be fair to the opposing argument. But if we keep a degree of civility and rationality, while still leveling well-deserved critiques at serious issues, which do involve the lives of many many people, we will be able to reach new ideas and compromises sooner rather than later. Perhaps from those debates and the spread of information thereafter, someday someone will build reasonable solutions to our problems.

As for the poorer person from a few pages back, I'm really concerned for you. Have you thought about starting a crowdfunding page to fix your car? I've seen people start those for all sorts of things like dental work and recovery from assault. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to do that in comparison. If you happen to be in the United States, you should be able to shop around for lower rates soon. Medicare enrollment is on oct 15th. Involuntary healthcare was supposed to pay for people like you for you to get back on your feet, not cause you such financial and emotional hardship. I really do not understand how the same people who claim to care about poor, starving children, could then laugh in your face and say such biting words to you. Children are valued because of their innocence. People forget they grow into adults, too, and lose empathy for their fellow adults.

[JosieQ]

Contrast with the USA's great depression. People went poor, broke, homeless, and some starved, but they did not starve in the millions and the whole country did not starve in such great extremes. Part of that was from charity, people lose money but some of them were willing to lose more to keep people from starving to death, times were hard but many people in the US made it through. Another part of that was from human kindness, which I think we all feel to some degree on this forum no matter which side we are on in the debate.

I believe that the more you allow people to keep what they earn, and the better off they are, the more charitable they become. I seem to recall a study I read in college where it pointed out that when taxes were lowest in United States history, charitable contributions were higher. People like to give when they are given the choice. People obviously do not like to give when forced, because of course that is not giving it is theft.

That's the thing about people who think communism is good. In admitting that, they're also admitting that they think people are garbage who need to be FORCED into caring about other human beings. And if that's the case, if humanity will only help one another at the point of a gun, then we are doomed anyway. If you're gonna force a lion at gunpoint to be a vegetarian, it is against his nature and you will fail, and he will either die or beat you and start eating meat again. You're not going to win that fight by force, you're not going to forcibly change the nature of man.

I don't believe we are inherently monsters though.

I've been poor most of my life and had things taken from me, but rarely ever given. As such, I don't give to charity or panhandlers, because I can't afford to and also I am in a constant state of bitterness from having been constantly stolen from. In the very few times where I've suddenly had some kind of windfall and gained a bit of money so that I actually have some breathing space, I immediately become more giving, and will hand a dollar to a guy on the street with a sign that very day. And it's not even sensible, because I should be saving it, because next week there's a catastrophe and I'm poor again and I really need that dollar.

But I believe human nature is to want to help each other, when we don't feel constantly taken advantage of.

After reading Ayn Rand's books I don't think she would let the ten children starve. Her deal is more to do with promoting exceptionalism and the individual, as a means to benefit society more than the concept of collectivism and the group, which in her philosophy actually drags a society down by smearing the most productive and talented people out of a sense of collective jealousy. Think about how many people you've heard talk shit about a public figure, celebrity, or role model you admire and you'll understand where she's coming from.

Great point. It's always funny to me how my country has always lauded capitalism (until recent years, where it's sliding into socialism on the way to communism), how people en masse will brag that in the US you can be anything, you can do anything, you can work and be rich if you try hard enough! But then they casually and automatically hate anyone with money, and people on news will say facts about something like a person's income in a tone that it's an indicator that being rich means he's somehow a piece of garbage. Always hated that contradiction. XD

There are issues and benefits to each system, and none of them are perfect. Well-read Freemasons know that Karl Marx admitted as much in his pamphlets he wrote that socialism is supposed to lead to communism, and communism was not meant to sustain a nation, but to destroy it, and from all the chaos and upheaval birth a fourth, new kind of system, in order to achieve utopia. He died before he specified what that utopia system would be like, and many equate communism to the utopia by mistake.

I did not know this and I find it very interesting. I watched a lot of "Star Trek TNG" as a kid, so there's a utopian society as I envision it. How do we get there though? Well, it's my contention that technology is being artificially held back, in addition to capitalism being artificially tanked, and people being artificially forced into poverty, so basically I think the solution is just to stand back and get out of the goddamn way. We need to overthrow our evil overlords, whose admitted purpose is to reduce the population and widen the gap between rich and poor, with a wealthy elite and a giant, poor underclass. Get rid of them and I think humanity by itself will find its way. How to do that though hmm...

Be civil, rational, and make an effort to be unemotional when debating this topic. The lives of billions of people worldwide ride on where we go with this, many people's own personal lives are at stake. It is easy to get heated in an argument, to get overly emotional, and to insult people. It is very hard to try to think of things from different people's points of views, to think critically, and to be fair to the opposing argument. But if we keep a degree of civility and rationality, while still leveling well-deserved critiques at serious issues, which do involve the lives of many many people, we will be able to reach new ideas and compromises sooner rather than later. Perhaps from those debates and the spread of information thereafter, someday someone will build reasonable solutions to our problems.

Valid point, and I can be very rational when arguing. But I don't see the point of it when someone's passive-aggressively insulting me, or insulting me outright. I can easily keep my temper when someone with wildly different worldviews doesn't agree with me, if they're civil about it. Because I'm not losing my temper so much as escalating by choice when someone's trying to be a dick as I don't agree with pandering to douchebags. I see people stay calm, and get insulted, and stay calm and debate, and get insulted, and stay calm, and it's just sad. It's like watching someone get slapped repeatedly and pretend its not happening. I'd rather, if you slap me, punch you in the face. To bystanders I look like a crazy, enraged psycho, like omg that reaction didn't fit the circumstances!! But it did. It's infinitely more honest. The hypocrite wanted a fight so why shouldn't I give it to them?

(Except that they don't want the fight I give them, really they didn't want to fight at all but just wanted to cowardly say shitty things to people and get away with it, meh I don't like playing that game.)

As for the poorer person from a few pages back, I'm really concerned for you. Have you thought about starting a crowdfunding page to fix your car? I've seen people start those for all sorts of things like dental work and recovery from assault. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to do that in comparison. If you happen to be in the United States, you should be able to shop around for lower rates soon. Medicare enrollment is on oct 15th. Involuntary healthcare was supposed to pay for people like you for you to get back on your feet, not cause you such financial and emotional hardship.

That's still me and ohhh I actually DID! What was it... "You Caring" I think? But the problem there is that I don't get do Facebook and Twitter and whatever else, so I don't really have a way to spread the "help me out link" so it didn't really get visits or go anywhere. Not sure how to overcome being as reclusive and hermit-like as I am, and still get help from people. Probably is no way. You gotta buy into society, and I don't. :\

Oh the involuntary heath-care has been so super helpful. I have to get the cheapest option through work because it's all I can afford (Obamacare actually cost MORE and was super unaffordable to me haha seriously), so because it's the cheapest it doesn't actually cover the insulin I need each month. It covered maybe about a third of it, when I was still going that route. (If I wasn't forced to have the insurance, I could pay for all the insulin myself, irony! XD)

For years I was suffering with this until I finally found out you can get insulin from Walmart without a prescription, $25 a bottle. My doctor never told me in all that time, even though she knew I struggled to pay for those goddamn $100+ bottles she had me on, and I was constantly in the hospital with complications from trying to ration it so it wouldn't run out too soon, and she would regularly hold my life hostage forcing me into visits that I neither wanted nor could afford before agreeing to refill my prescriptions at all. (Meanwhile my sister's been on Xanax for like 10 years, hasn't seen her doctor in like 7, just calls her up and says "I need more pills" and the woman says "Okay sure I'll call it in." They love having you on THOSE drugs, but not the drugs you need to live whyyy.)

Anyway since finding the Walmart loophole, I have happily dumped my garbage doctor. And now I pay out of pocket for my insulin, because the insurance doesn't cover it, and I pay for that insurance in addition as it sits there and does nothing. Will it do anything if I face a new crisis, like a broken bone or cancer? Who knows. Hope I don't ever have to find out that it doesn't, because I'm pretty sure it's virtually useless.

But these well-off people who don't seem to know what actual struggle is say it's good for me and others like me, forcing me and us to pay for insurance, and they must know better right? I guess I'm just imagining my problems, because really they've apparently fixed them for me and I'm too stupid to know my troubles have all been seen to by their charity at the point of a gun. @.@

...

Ugh I hate giving enemies so much personal information, going to regret this post when they come back in force and try to tell me what I'm doing wrong and how I can do better without knowing any of the actual details. <.<

I really do not understand how the same people who claim to care about poor, starving children, could then laugh in your face and say such biting words to you. Children are valued because of their innocence. People forget they grow into adults, too, and lose empathy for their fellow adults.

This is a fantastic, fantastic thing you've just said. It seems like it should be obvious to people but it isn't. I constantly talk about this hypocrisy, how our society is all about "The children, the children, help the children! Oh what you're 18 today, fuck you got nothin' for you go die now." But when I try to express this, simpletons just take away "Oh so you hate kids." DX

Good post, Guest. Good read. I kinda didn't mean to say so much but you got me babbling. [o~o]

[Astrogirl]

Astrogirl, what country did you grow up in? You've dropped hints, I'm guessing it was somewhere around eastern europe? Just curious.

East Germany.

[Astrogirl]

Um so, "I know you are but what am I?" is your defense?

I have no idea what that means.

Does anyone else know what she meant?

Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.

That's not capitalism.

Is not? What is it then? I'm reasonably certain that is exactly what capitalism is.

But since you've given me the date... (1st of July, 1990) And since you seriously, frighteningly seem to be saying your country was better off before, then all I can say to you is du bist mehr batshit wahnsinn than I originally hat gedacht.

You may want to run that through Google translate again, telling someone they are Wahnsinn is actually quite a high compliment. Yeah, idioms are weird.

But kudos for finding that out just from this date, that's actually quite impressive considering there doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia page "list of dates countries switched from planned economy to free market economy" or similar.

I'm still curious what you needed the country for. In the case of East Germany you reacted with calling me crazy (well, trying to call me crazy). And in the case of some other socialist/communist country you ... would have reacted differently? Which country would that have been and what would the reaction have been?

Your comment on that is only relevant if your grandparents' literal business and income came from growing tomatoes and selling them, along with chicken's eggs and pork, and your communist government didn't take any of that.

Depends on your definition of business. They both ate the stuff themselves and traded it with other people for hard-to-obtain things (mostly the eggs, tomatoes were not so high in demand to be useful for barter). My grandparents were also teachers, not sure my greatgrandmother had another job.
But people also were farmers who owned their farms and sold their stuff for money and the government didn't take the things they produced away nor their means of production. There was a lot of social pressure to join a co-op (once a month someone came by and talked to you about how nice it is in the co-op, that you work only 40 hours and get 25 days of vacation and you don't have to worry when there is a bad harvest or your animals get a disease), but it was not legally required.

Cool story, but irrelevant as fuuuuuck.

You don't seem to have a firm grasp on what is relevant or not. This is 100% apropos.

I'm actually starting to feel really sorry for you

That's nice, thank you.

if we can go back to my now decades-old desire to agree to disagree and stop talking, that'd be suuuuper.

I have a hint for you: If you want to drop a conversation, just drop it. Don't go in replying with more incendiary stuff and in particular don't add replies to stuff that was not towards you but towards someone else in the thread.

Anyway, forcing people to buy health insurance is right and good, and it should be around 7% of one's income and be required to cover insulin.

[JosieQ]

Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.

That's not capitalism.

Is not? What is it then? I'm reasonably certain that is exactly what capitalism is.

Must feel bad to be so wrong all the time.

You may want to run that through Google translate again, telling someone they are Wahnsinn is actually quite a high compliment. Yeah, idioms are weird.

Actually, looks like Google translate gives you "verrückt". I chose "wahnsinn" because I like the word, from my own experience, from majoring in German (among other things) in college. I'll admit though that your English is much better than my German, however it's still not good enough for you to be having this argument and making your points understood, and understanding the points of others. Which you're doing poorly.

I'm still curious what you needed the country for. In the case of East Germany you reacted with calling me crazy (well, trying to call me crazy). And in the case of some other socialist/communist country you ... would have reacted differently? Which country would that have been and what would the reaction have been?

I already called it an "obvious trap," remember? Because the obvious trap is, communism always fails. And you blundered right into obvious trap and are from EAST GERMANY, of all places. The most obvious and provable example of how communism is garbage, as the West side provably advanced while the East side provably stagnated? Haha. Hahahahaha. Hahahahahaholyfuckingshitseriously.

Cool story, but irrelevant as fuuuuuck.

You don't seem to have a firm grasp on what is relevant or not. This is 100% apropos.

Must feel bad to be so wrong all the time.

Anyway, forcing people to buy health insurance is right and good, and it should be around 7% of one's income and be required to cover insulin.

Oh do please tell me, scumbag, more about how your kind thieving from me and literally killing me are doing me good? If only they did it right, I guess, it wouldn't still be morally wrong and everyone would be happy! Except all the fit healthy people pissed about how they have to pay in for the more expensive healthcare of the unfit fat people, which leads to legislation telling you you're legally not allowed to smoke or drink anymore, or have cookies, or even a too-large soda. Yeah great plan, divide people even more in your idiotic effort to make them care about each other.

You can't do it right. I know you don't care about freedom, because you're a creepy master-worshiping slave and freedom is worthless to you, but it is inarguable that: Freedom is THE most important thing a person can have. Not your "free" healthcare, not your "free" food or rent, but freedom itself. You enslaving people for their own good doesn't give you the moral high-ground. It gives you no ground. The choice you are giving people is "Be a slave or kill yourself." This puts you so far below anyone else that it's laughable to see you sit down there in your own filth and try to pretend you have any kind of honor, dignity, or compassion. Your refusing to understand that a person has a RIGHT to not be forced to look after strangers, or I daresay even themselves, doesn't make you clever, it makes you stupid. You're a thief and a slaver. Acting like it's for their own good when you decide things on behalf of strangers makes you soulless as well as stupid.

[Guest]

Astrogirl, what country did you grow up in? You've dropped hints, I'm guessing it was somewhere around eastern europe? Just curious.

East Germany.

It's been a really long time since I learned about East Germany in World History class but I remember something about the Berlin Wall... here it is : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_at ... man_border
My family came from a communist country, it was in China however, and the stories I heard anecdotally about communism were not positive ones. I had family members nearly starve to death. I live in a capitalist country now, the USA. Those same family members, yeah their lives aren't perfect but they do notice the abundance of food here.

So yeah when you said you were from a communist country where no children starved I am understandably skeptical, I hope you'll understand, from that kind of family history and background. It sounds contradictory to say a country or system of state was so wonderful that no one starved, yet 4~ million or so people migrated out of it, and then they had to build a wall, to keep people from leaving upon pain of death.

I suspect that you were propagandized about communism, and taught during your formulative years about Marxism-Leninism. That, combined with childhood naivete and nostalgia about your early life in communist east germany gave you a positive outlook on communism. Then during your adolescence and adulthood following that, you learned more about the harsh realities of the world, and to you, it was all capitalism's fault. When in reality, there were harsh realities going on around you even in your childhood, you were just not as aware of them then as you were as you grew older.

[Guest]

Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.

That's not capitalism.

Is not? What is it then? I'm reasonably certain that is exactly what capitalism is.

Capitalism is more like, you grow the 8 tomatoes and they're all yours except, the goal is really to try to sell those 8 tomatoes to the local pizza shop, and you're competing fairly with your neighbors for who has the lowest priced and best tomatoes that the pizza shop wants to buy. Whoever wins this competition is going to grow (potentially) from a tomato garden into a full-scale tomato farm. Other factors apply such as how in demand the pizza is (and therefore your tomatoes). The benefit is that you've voluntarily upscaled your tomato thing going from a gardener to a massive farmer, in which case the general area now has a whole lot of tomatoes. At which point you can't grow all those tomatoes yourself anymore, so you have to hire workers.

They voluntarily agree with you to each do the work to grow the 8 tomatoes (in reality, more) you sell them to the pizza shop, and you give a portion of the money that you both agree upon to the workers. That can mean anything from 0 tomatoes (unpaid internships lol) to actually more than 8 tomatoes (this can be for various reasons, such as you've found someone smart enough to turn tomato growth up to 11 somehow) If either of you stop agreeing upon that amount you can renegotiate, or you fire them or they quit.

Communism (and socialism) to a degree come along all after that, from people who theorize that the whole capitalism thing is unfair. They come along and instead of letting the farmer/workers/pizza shop do these things themselves naturally, the communist state decides:

Communist: Farmer, you're working in the pizza shop now.
Farmer: "But i was happy being the farmer"
Communist: Shut up Farmer. And I'm taking your farm and giving it to all your workers. They can grow however many tomatoes they want and we'll split them evenly.

Somehow this almost always fails. At the end of the season 2 tomatoes per person is grown instead of 8. The Farmer is unhappy cleaning dishes at the pizza shop and she runs away starting a new tomato garden (and eventually farm) somewhere else. The remaining workers can't survive on 2 tomatoes and most of them run off too, joining the Farmer. The communist is ashamed so he lies and blames it all on the farmer, and the remaining workers are told they have to grow 8 tomatoes now, every season, without choice. This is the only farm left in the area now, so Instead of getting a choice the workers are pretty much enslaved and gaslighted by lies that the Communist's farm is great, when in reality it was stolen from that other farmer, the tomato production rate is declining as more workers get upset, and more of them start starving...

....

I appreciate the attempt at innovation, at wanting to change things and make things better. What I despise is the repeated failure of result, the starvation, the genocide, the enslavement, theft, and sheer massive scale of human suffering caused whenever supposed communists grab at power. Sure, capitalism isn't perfect. But the reality is as a species we've multiplied into the billions under the system of capitalism and we've died in the millions due to communism. I'm never ever going to succeed in convincing everyone in the world to stop believing in it, but I do hope that less people die, starve, and suffer from it. To me the most infamous communist leaders commit the worst crime a leader can do, directly or indirectly causing the deaths of millions of their own people, in famines caused not by the weather or natural causes, but their own mismanagement. None of us on the forum will ever be those leaders, so we don't have to worry about that, but we can decide with what little power we have, choosing with our votes, and attention, and money and effort to not put any more faith into those leaders in the future and teaching the next generation to do the same.

If we want to get better and move towards more of a post-scarcity society, to virtually remove world hunger and poverty, yeah, we can, but realistically, one step at a time. Communism's quick-fix solution is nothing but a scam perpetuated by people who have a lot of money in order to grab power, and it's been disproven time and time again. It appalls me that someone still puts so much faith into it, but it doesn't surprise me.

[Guest]

Fudge. I have to figure out this multi-quote thing you did now, you did it great, I just haven't used forums in a couple of years, opting for social media instead, so this is gonna be new to me again.

I believe that the more you allow people to keep what they earn, and the better off they are, the more charitable they become. I seem to recall a study I read in college where it pointed out that when taxes were lowest in United States history, charitable contributions were higher. People like to give when they are given the choice. People obviously do not like to give when forced, because of course that is not giving it is theft.

That's the thing about people who think communism is good. In admitting that, they're also admitting that they think people are garbage who need to be FORCED into caring about other human beings. And if that's the case, if humanity will only help one another at the point of a gun, then we are doomed anyway. If you're gonna force a lion at gunpoint to be a vegetarian, it is against his nature and you will fail, and he will either die or beat you and start eating meat again. You're not going to win that fight by force, you're not going to forcibly change the nature of man.

I don't believe we are inherently monsters though.

I've been poor most of my life and had things taken from me, but rarely ever given. As such, I don't give to charity or panhandlers, because I can't afford to and also I am in a constant state of bitterness from having been constantly stolen from. In the very few times where I've suddenly had some kind of windfall and gained a bit of money so that I actually have some breathing space, I immediately become more giving, and will hand a dollar to a guy on the street with a sign that very day. And it's not even sensible, because I should be saving it, because next week there's a catastrophe and I'm poor again and I really need that dollar.

But I believe human nature is to want to help each other, when we don't feel constantly taken advantage of.

I think that study makes sense. I've never heard that tidbit myself, opting to spend my research project time in college on gay rights and the argument for gay marriage instead. But it makes sense to me now. The more I read and the more I talk to various people in person and on the internet, from all those anecdotal experiences combined I have been mulling about the idea that it would be best to advise people to focus on prospering themselves more, because by having more yourself, and taking care of yourself first, then you can be generous to others. And because you have set yourself up with all the tools, resources, and knowledge to continue to prosper the amount of generosity you can give is multiplied.

I have always believed that giving charity is a virtuous thing, but I've expanded that thinking to add that it doesn't mean spending money on other things is necessarily always a bad thing. When we give to a non-profit organization or a charity organization, most of the time a certain percentage of that is going to the organization worker's paychecks anyway. When we spend money on goods or services, that money goes into the paychecks of the people who who worked on those goods or services. That exchange may not be as virtuous as charity, but it is one that is fair to both parties.

I don't have much either, but I am comfortable, and I don't feel the pressure of being as poor as I was before. Things are getting better. I've noticed that it is a lot harder for those that are on their own, living alone, or they have family but are choosing not to rely on them and being independent. My advice is do find some sense of community to help, whether it is family, friends, social media, a church, a charity organization. If your car breaks down try a rideshare app or carpooling. Find a roommate to split the cost on rent. Or if you really do want to do it alone you're going to have to pull the extra hours at work and budget to save up money to fix the car/ lease a new car.

As for the globalism/agenda 21/agenda 2030 thing yeah I've heard. i think that recent events have shown that they are not very competent or scary people though, just scared wealthy people who have too much distance between us and them to really face the reality of what they are trying to accomplish, or face the death and destruction that they have done so far. I think someday one of them are going to look into the eyes of someone they've condemned to death and see the image of their own child or grandchild and realize, my god, what am i really doing...

They are really more afraid of us than we are of them. Or not of you or me specifically, we're just peaceful civilians. There are probably various groups out there just waiting for them to go too far, so that they, in turn, can go a step further. I don't want that to happen either in our contemporary times, and leave for history yet another slew of war and death. It's just so dumb they are even flirting with that though. People will never submit to the absolute amount of enslavement they propose. Even if they kill all of us off and our ideas, and brainwash the next generation, that next generation is going to look around them and rebel on a massive scale. If they want to suicide, leave the rest of us out of it. Life can be pretty great, pleasurable, fun, and enjoyable when we are not suffering from poverty, and most of us don't even want a vast amount of luxury. There is plenty of extra funds to grab from the scams they already have running, so there is plenty left for them to just peacefully exist upon. But they just won't do that. They didn't even come up with most of it originally. It was a tradition passed down to them from people who aren't even alive today anymore, and they chose to carry on that tradition. I wish that they would in turn rebel against that. Try something new that is not so obviously destructive. They don't have to think of it themselves, with money they could hire the best minds in the world and thinktank it. If they don't rebel, the satisfaction is that in their minds they are not really free. By passing down the plan, their forefathers have enslaved them. They have most of the money in the world, but not as an individual. As a collective group of families that are on edge about each other and keeping each other in check. It's a shame that they can't be truly free, can't be good, and can't be happy. If I could imagine an individual or individuals with all of that money there could be so many creative, fun, and beneficial things they could do with it. Instead they are cogs in a machine their ancestors built for them, forced to turn in one direction forever, because it is the only direction they know.

Great point. It's always funny to me how my country has always lauded capitalism (until recent years, where it's sliding into socialism on the way to communism), how people en masse will brag that in the US you can be anything, you can do anything, you can work and be rich if you try hard enough! But then they casually and automatically hate anyone with money, and people on news will say facts about something like a person's income in a tone that it's an indicator that being rich means he's somehow a piece of garbage. Always hated that contradiction. XD

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. -Ronald Reagan"
I get the impression that it's constantly sliding. I'm in the US too, grew up here, but I was originally from China. I see so many of my fellow Chinese here coming here for freedom, and educational opportunities for their children. Communists in other countries like to criticize China as a bad example of capitalism, but the truth is they ruined what should have been the world's number one superpower, given their population and high average IQ with communism, and then slid some incentives up towards capitalism while retaining as few freedoms as possible. They dialed back the one child policy as recently as 2016, and still retain the right to execute people just for being gay.

The US has a sweet spot of freedom we've been constantly adjusting for the last 200 years and I think it's something really special that the whole world should not want to lose, as an indicator for where to adjust their own freedoms in the future.

I did not know this and I find it very interesting. I watched a lot of "Star Trek TNG" as a kid, so there's a utopian society as I envision it. How do we get there though? Well, it's my contention that technology is being artificially held back, in addition to capitalism being artificially tanked, and people being artificially forced into poverty, so basically I think the solution is just to stand back and get out of the goddamn way. We need to overthrow our evil overlords, whose admitted purpose is to reduce the population and widen the gap between rich and poor, with a wealthy elite and a giant, poor underclass. Get rid of them and I think humanity by itself will find its way. How to do that though hmm...

Marx was just a poor person in the industrial era once, not too much different from you and me, just a bit of an idealistic writer and a bit lazy on the work ethic, so he found a way to justify and condense that into his philosophy. What really changed the world for the worse is when Lenin read his book. Lenin, and later Stalin, wanted power. So yeah, even without that tidbit it's pretty open knowledge how precarious communism is, the one effective tool that they've had is the way they teach their students that outsiders to communism just do not understand communism, and therefore their followers stay loyal and don't question it much or invent new thought often to at least progress the theory. How many decades has it been since communism has had a new evolution?

Eh who knows. Maybe it's like that scene from Futurama, where the city builds up into skyscrapers, gets zapped back into the stone age by aliens, builds back up, gets zapped again. We're on computers, tablets, and smartphones while somewhere in the world someone is living and thinking like it's the middle ages. I think a utopian society is a fine ideal to dream of but to get there we have to do it step by step, generation by generation, and it's going to take hard work, labor, and thinking that we are not going to get to any time soon simply because all the conveniences we have today make us want the quick fix rather than the slow and surer path, and that quick fix is going to be the end of us.

We don't lack brilliant people, scientists, inventors, the world is actually swarming with them but big businesses react to them like giant sharks ready to eat them. Some of it might be from shadowy people trying to hold back progress for one motive or another, the rest of it is just the natural jungle of things.

As for getting rid of evil overlords, I'm at a loss there. War, violence, and destruction are not my thing. I'd rather think about them, negotiate with them, offer them deals. Try to get the supervillian to compromise with the superhero instead of having an all-out battle where a lot of innocent people are going to die. After all, if a lot of people die it's what they would have wanted in the first place, and we can't give them the satisfaction of that. I would rather people multiply, reach for the stars, and spread out. Let the new world order die in ineffectiveness against a sea of humanity pulling in endless directions. If things aren't exactly a perfect utopia that's okay. Utopia is a dream we will never truly reach. It doesn't make the dream wrong. Reality is just a messy thing. There can be beauty in that, as well.

Valid point, and I can be very rational when arguing. But I don't see the point of it when someone's passive-aggressively insulting me, or insulting me outright. I can easily keep my temper when someone with wildly different worldviews doesn't agree with me, if they're civil about it. Because I'm not losing my temper so much as escalating by choice when someone's trying to be a dick as I don't agree with pandering to douchebags. I see people stay calm, and get insulted, and stay calm and debate, and get insulted, and stay calm, and it's just sad. It's like watching someone get slapped repeatedly and pretend its not happening. I'd rather, if you slap me, punch you in the face. To bystanders I look like a crazy, enraged psycho, like omg that reaction didn't fit the circumstances!! But it did. It's infinitely more honest. The hypocrite wanted a fight so why shouldn't I give it to them?

(Except that they don't want the fight I give them, really they didn't want to fight at all but just wanted to cowardly say shitty things to people and get away with it, meh I don't like playing that game.)

By all means do what you like and what will satisfy you then I didn't think of it like that. To me it seemed like some arguments are just not worth the energy to get upset about. Energy is better spent thinking of a good move, like in a chess match, so that one can make a move that's a better argument. But some people enjoy a good fight, too. When it's nonlethal fight and fair, I have nothing against it.

That's still me and ohhh I actually DID! ...

(Etc. a bit long so I cut it, I addressed the rest of what you said here in replies above out of order from remembering this part)

Obamacare really only helps people who are either unemployed or working only part-time, or a few specific single mothers who qualify in one way or the other. It puts an undue burden on the rest of the poor who are actually working 2-3 jobs to try to make ends meet and actually makes them unqualified for working too much. It's like... whaaat? What about all of those families Obama himself showcased, they don't even qualify based on the income they bring in. I believe you, and give you the benefit of the doubt that yeah you did things right and that system still screwed you over. I think it was meant to collapse so to cause unrest so that people would theoretically look towards universal healthcare.

The Trump administration wasn't able to dismantle it, but they did pull a few screws loose. Something about forming groups to shop across state. I would take a second look at the marketplace and see if you can't get a better deal around now, just in case. Don't have to commit to anything, just look around.

This is a fantastic, fantastic thing you've just said. It seems like it should be obvious to people but it isn't. I constantly talk about this hypocrisy, how our society is all about "The children, the children, help the children! Oh what you're 18 today, fuck you got nothin' for you go die now." But when I try to express this, simpletons just take away "Oh so you hate kids." DX

Good post, Guest. Good read. I kinda didn't mean to say so much but you got me babbling. [o~o]

I like to talk so I cause other people to talk when they're in the mood for it.

That's the one thing I thought Obama got but apparently it was just lip service for politics, according to the results, and exploitation of young adults for votes. Extended health coverage for parent's health insurance for their kids up to age 26. Doesn't work out too great for kids without parents or parents without those plans. Worse, when the premiums go up to an unaffordable rate for everyone anyway.

Free, or affordable education for young people. Just that it's going to turn some of them into mindless communist zombies, tantruming babies that need safe spaces, or jaded drinking party animals. Oh, and some of them are going to be taught to literally hate their own parents. I came off it with a mild case of feminist literature, but I've heard horror stories. What I've seen from my peers is no better. I'm becoming increasingly worried for them, how, just how, are all those gender studies going to help them in the real world?

I was really, really, gung-ho about gay marriage. I'm happy now that it's won. I have nothing against the trans, gender fluid, gender neutral, etc. Everyone of all ages is learning a lot about that.

But young people, even those over the age of 18, are supposed to be taught more critical thinking skills, practical job skills, and the tools on how to obtain knowledge so that they can come back from college able to achieve. Instead so many of them are saddled with student loans and working dead end jobs. So many of their classroom hours were spent on lectures about social justice agendas. That means a percentage of what they are paying is towards a cynical political scam. There are exceptions, some schools don't touch on those subjects at all, but some schools or specific teachers are making it a significant portion of their lesson plan when they should be teaching other important subjects.

Whether you are young or old, keep learning, and working, but prioritize your health first. Take care of yourself. Pull those extra hours if you think you could if you are going solo but I would recommend finding some help from some form of community given your health condition instead. I know some successful people pulled themselves out of poverty and became self-sufficient from doing a lot of studying and working many many overtime hours, and that's fine, it was their choice. You can also be smart about it and a little selfish too, rely on some people for some help and hopefully pay them back later or pay it forward when you are in a better situation.

Because the better off you are, the more you'll be able to be generous later. And in that way the world can get just a little bit better.

[Justabystander]

Umm this meandering debate about whether forcing people to buy insurance is proper and good is imo ridiculous. Of course it is both.

You are a human being, you are alive. Thus you have a liability. You might at any point keel over sick, and start dying. Now, society, with streets and buildings - don't want dead people littering the place, nor do they want dying people littering the place. You have a liability, since you are alive. You have to cover this liability - and society have a Right(tm) to demand you cover it. it is, after all, towards society you have it.

Now, some societies in the world take this at minimum value, they locate your ruin of a body, pick it up and dump it someplace outside of town. Minimal expence, but an expence nonetheless. Should be covered by payments you did, while alive. These societies are usually not organized enough to actually manage those claims, but in theory. More successful societies have increased the effort spent on people - they take them to ER's and try to patch them together. Still more successful societies have dug further into the root causes and found that total utility lost would be less if people went to the doctor some time before they keeled over in the street - so they claim your liability should start there. Bold claim, it can and is argued against - but still in tune with previous argumentation. And thus, the claim is lawful, but one might argue about the size of the liability.

Some societies (the most successful ones, with extremely few exceptions (the single exception being the US of A - in the top list of places peope are happy existing in) - they say oh fak it, handling this through liability and insurance just becomes a pyramid scheme for lawyers and consultants, lets just pay for it all and accept the consequences of that - a very expensive state operated enterprise that is only adequate at handling peoples illnesses but at least we don't have to keep making laws to close loopholes in a pyramid scheme.

Now, statistics alone make it very hard to argue against that having a single payer system is the solution with highest utility. Look at the gini list and compare against how many have single payer system. Sure, correlation and causuality is a matter to discuss - but I would find it hard, were I to try to wring out a proof for the counter-hypothesis - having a single payer system decreases the utility of that society, when data looks like it does.

[Justabystander]

*braino (a typo with the brain) above: I said gini list, but I meant world happiness report.