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- Socialism (as in: actual socialism, not the European / Scandinavian variety that for the most part still builds upon a free-market economy), when implemented,

- Socialism (as in: actual socialism, not the European / Scandinavian variety that for the most part still builds upon a free-market economy), when implemented, will inevitably fail. In most cases, because it'll devolve into an authoritarian system fairly quickly. Those arguing in favour of socialism often will resort to a True Scotsman argument: "Yes, but this wasn't real socialism." - The idea of "limits to growth" (as promoted by the Club of Rome) is a fallacy that - although since the time of Thomas Malthus it has been proven wrong time and again - remains bewilderingly popular. - The EU is a cold war relic that's ridiculously ill-equipped for the challenges of the 21st century. Though motivated by misguided ideas, petty nationalism, and selfishness, given time Brexit might prove to not have been such a bad idea after all. - Nuclear power at least in the short term should be considered a vital component of combatting climate change. Regarding software: - Web standards are actually quite decent. The web and web technologies are great way of providing and distributing applications. As for more some recent events: - Lockdowns and civil rights restrictions in general are neither an effective, nor a reasonable or sustainable approach for dealing with a pandemic. - Zero Covid / No Covid / a Covid elimination strategy is an unsustainable dead end. - Negative COVID-19 test results, not vaccination passports, should be relied on as an access requirement.

mydeskistoosm 5y ago
>been proven wrong time and again Has it been proven? I'm not a malthusian at all and that argument drives me up the wall. However the best answer I can come up with is "capitalism is a brass-balled bet that we'll figure our problems out, and so far we have."
- BjoernKW 5y ago
  Malthus' assumptions and conclusions have been empirically proven wrong, and resoundingly so. An abundance of resources leads to slower population growth instead of a continued geometric growth. Paradigm shifts such as the industrial, green, and digital revolutions allow us to ever more efficiently extract resources from a (somewhat) closed system instead of the availability of resources remaining constant. Apart from the data alone, which pretty much speaks for itself, from Steven Pinker to Ray Kurzweil, from economics to ecological and cognitive sciences there are numerous arguments against the Malthusian model and a Malthusian world: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-malthus-is-still-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-malthus-is-st... http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6106/610608.html http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publication... https://aeon.co/ideas/the-earths-carrying-capacity-for-human-life-is-not-fixed https://aeon.co/ideas/the-earths-carrying-capacity-for-human... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/weekinreview/15mcneil.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/weekinreview/15mcneil.htm...

mydeskistoosm 5y ago

>been proven wrong time and again Has it been proven? I'm not a malthusian at all and that argument drives me up the wall. However the best answer I can come up with is "capitalism is a brass-balled bet that we'll figure our problems out, and so far we have."

BjoernKW 5y ago
Malthus' assumptions and conclusions have been empirically proven wrong, and resoundingly so. An abundance of resources leads to slower population growth instead of a continued geometric growth. Paradigm shifts such as the industrial, green, and digital revolutions allow us to ever more efficiently extract resources from a (somewhat) closed system instead of the availability of resources remaining constant. Apart from the data alone, which pretty much speaks for itself, from Steven Pinker to Ray Kurzweil, from economics to ecological and cognitive sciences there are numerous arguments against the Malthusian model and a Malthusian world: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-malthus-is-still-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-malthus-is-st... http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6106/610608.html http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publication... https://aeon.co/ideas/the-earths-carrying-capacity-for-human-life-is-not-fixed https://aeon.co/ideas/the-earths-carrying-capacity-for-human... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/weekinreview/15mcneil.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/weekinreview/15mcneil.htm...