5 ms·

Life. Right? Is Life a bad word? No. It's a beautiful word. Does it contain the good, the bad and the ugly? Of course. Is Capitalism a bad word? No. It's a b

by jd115 5y ago

Life. Right? Is Life a bad word? No. It's a beautiful word. Does it contain the good, the bad and the ugly? Of course. Is Capitalism a bad word? No. It's a beautiful idea, and it works significantly better than anything else humans have ever been able to think of on a mass-scale. Does it contain the good the bad and the ugly? Sure.

jklinger410 5y ago
A capitalist society has told you that capitalism is good and you think you're so smart parroting this opinion around. It's getting very old.
- hackflip 5y ago
  I don't think capitalism is good, I just think the alternatives are worse.
  - 7sidedmarble 5y ago
    Is it not a little pessimistic (and not to mention, very convenient for the ruling class) to believe that we've reached the peak process of resource allocation and community building in the western world of 2021? There is no possibility for an alternative to the current system that is slightly more equitable to slightly more people? I think that's why these statements sound like cheerleading for the status quo.
    - mistermann 5y ago
      It's like propaganda (Our most sacred institution) has killed people's imagination and hardened their hearts.
      - finiteseries 5y ago
        The twentieth century and its experiments in alternative resource allocation and community building are not propaganda, it happened. It wasn’t live tweeted, but we do, actually, have records. Some people were even there!
        jd115 5y ago
        Yes, yes we were.. and it's the last place we want to find ourselves again.
        mistermann 5y ago
        propaganda: information, especially [but not exclusively; nuance abounds] of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. This reminds me of this article currently on the front page: https://quillette.com/2021/11/29/the-universal-structure-of-storytelling/ https://quillette.com/2021/11/29/the-universal-structure-of-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29408567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29408567 People think about and perceive reality in "stories" (processed heuristically), because that is how we communicate about it - in journalism, in conversations, on social media, almost everywhere (there are exceptions: software, hard sciences, etc [1]) - from the day we are born to the day we die. We don't really know any other form in daily practice, so we do not realize it - it is the fabric of reality. A (simplistic) alternative would be speaking to each other like ~autistic, emotionless, hyper-pedantic, object-oriented, robotic AI agents...which human beings tend to dislike, strongly. In this example, I've made an allegation (and made reference to one example of a story that (allegedly) involved propaganda): >> It's like propaganda (Our most sacred institution) has killed people's imagination and hardened their hearts. Now, I am countered ("debunked" in modern day increasingly popular subjective parlance, as opposed to "disproven" in objective parlance), by a ~story (which based on my experience, would "rank highly" among observers, perhaps due to its consistency with other stories: "records", "fact"-based journalism): > The twentieth century and its experiments in alternative resource allocation and community building are not propaganda, it happened. > It wasn’t live tweeted, but we do, actually, have records. Some people were even there! In no way did I objectively/physically assert that the entirety of "The twentieth century and its experiments in alternative resource allocation and community building" are propaganda or that they did not happen. In no way did I say that "the" (a rather cognitively magical word) events (the specifics of which we do not know (and do not realize we do not know), even completely leaving aside the infinitely complex underlying causality) of January 6 did not happen. However, to various agents/observers within this system that we live, I did say these things. It did not actually happen, but due to the nature of reality [2], if they are perceived as happening (which can occur in many ways), they then become Real (as opposed to True), and are then cognitively processed, stored, recovered (on demand), and perceived as reality itself. And if many agents agree upon a story, it then becomes "Truth" (and perceived as Truth), and then documented as Objective History. tl;dr: Plato's Allegory of the Cave may have some truth to it. [1] Interestingly, these domains tend to be massively more accomplished than the rest of reality. Whether the unusual way they deal in perception (extremely simplified: objectively rather than subjectively) has anything to do with that, I will leave as an exercise to the reader. [2] Reality is a very interesting word. In Scientific Materialistic oriented cultures, it is typically perceived (recursively, as "reality") as consisting of physical objects, and events involving physical objects. Reality does indeed consist of these things, but that is but a slice of the entirety of it. However, ideas such this can be easily debunked, because they "are" (another cognitively magical word) "woo woo" - and thus the local minima of Maya is maintained indefinitely. Ironically, this too is a story. Which story is more true, is also left as an exercise to the reader.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      Capitalism may be the best economic model. The only alternative is a non-economic model: post-scarcity. A world where there's an abundance of goods and resources would have no need to economize at all. The internet is an example. Data is abundant and can be copied and distributed infinitely at virtually no cost. People actually have to impose artificial scarcity on data in order to retrofit an economic system into the virtual world.
- povik 5y ago
  I happen to come from that part of the world where something radically different has been tried out, and will also tell you capitalism is good (considering the alternatives).
- themaninthedark 5y ago
  (With apologies to Churchill) Many forms of commerce have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that capitalism is the worst form of commerce except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. But honestly, GGP replying with a one word answer "Capitalism" and to paraphrase your reply >"The system has brainwashed you" does no one here any good. Please expound on what system you would like to see implemented and why it would not have this problem. You will probably have to defend your ideas but that is what debate is for.
  - ziddoap 5y ago
    >Please expound on what system you would like to see implemented and why it would not have this problem. While I agree simply saying "capitalism" and hand-waving at "brainwashing" are both not great conversation starters, your demands are equally unhelpful, no matter how nicely you phrase it. One does not require a solution to a problem in order to identify a problem.
  - 7sidedmarble 5y ago
    >But honestly, GGP replying with a one word answer "Capitalism" and to paraphrase your reply >"The system has brainwashed you" does no one here any good. Please expound on what system you would like to see implemented and why it would not have this problem. Do you not see the double standard in this very post of yours? You're chastising him with 'please recommend what system we should use then' and at the same time claiming the advantage to capitalism is that it's an imperfect system, yet still better then anything else we've come up with. If you believe human beings have not thought of any better systems or ideas, then why would you ask him to produce one, other then you would just shut it down with that same argument? It just seems intellectually lazy. If you believe this then no one could ever sway you. At that point don't pretend to be interested in hearing alternatives, just say you've made up your mind.
- jd115 5y ago
  Quite the contrary. I have now lived half my life under a communist regime and half under a capitalist one. Let me be abundantly clear: I far prefer the latter. I like where it is, and I like where it's headed. I NEVER want to hear about communism ever again. Here's the main differences I see: 1. Capitalism is a social construct. It embraces human greed and builds upon it. That's why it works so well. 2. Communism is merely a short-term con scheme (granted, on a rather large scale). It embraces hypocrisy, pretends to shun greed, steals everyone's chips and runs, while making people build some idealistic nice stuff which all collapses to dust and misery the moment the top runs away with the money. 3. There is no 3. People like to wank about with all sorts of flowery ideas about capitalism minus the greed, but that's just communism really.
  - scrose 5y ago
    What country do you live in that has a purely capitalist system? I’m curious how that would work out. Even the USA has a lot of socialist policies that primarily benefit the wealthy(ie. Taxpayer funded mortgage deductions)
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    1. Communism is a social construct. It embraces human goodness and builds upon it. That's why it is ethical and good. 2. Capitalism is merely a short-term con scheme (granted, on a rather large scale.) It embraces hypocrisy, encourages greed, steals from the poor and gives to the rich, while making people build some idealistic idea of competitive fairness while burning the entire planet to shreds while the top run away with the resources and quality of life. 3. There is no 3. People like to pretend they understand world history and economics with all these false ideas that lack context of how capitalism is better, when it's just propaganda that hides the resources and military strategy that went behind the current layout of the world economy.
    - jd115 5y ago
      Adorable. You've never actually been on the receiving end of communism, have you? Seems like you just enjoy prescribing it and bashing what actually works (as all communists do). You stole my words verbatim. As all communists do (steal). Because they are completely devoid of any and all creativity and individuality. It's in the word itself. But hey, if we say that owning stuff is bad, we can get away with stealing as much as we want, right? Genius (not). Look, you can keep calling the black colour white, but it doesn't make it so. The only reason anyone can call communism good and continue to justify its horrendous monstrosity DECADES AFTER it flopped and sprayed diarrhoea everywhere, is because of incurable guilt consciousness. Which all communists have, because they know they're worthless. "Communism is a social construct"... my ass. There's never been anything more anti-social or more vile. Trust me, I am well aware of the other horrors of the 20th century. This one tops them all.
pydry 5y ago
Capitalism definitely has some of the best PR.
- LanceH 5y ago
  Yea, all the other systems.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by jd115 5y ago

jklinger410 5y ago

A capitalist society has told you that capitalism is good and you think you're so smart parroting this opinion around. It's getting very old.

hackflip 5y ago
I don't think capitalism is good, I just think the alternatives are worse.
- 7sidedmarble 5y ago
  Is it not a little pessimistic (and not to mention, very convenient for the ruling class) to believe that we've reached the peak process of resource allocation and community building in the western world of 2021? There is no possibility for an alternative to the current system that is slightly more equitable to slightly more people? I think that's why these statements sound like cheerleading for the status quo.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    It's like propaganda (Our most sacred institution) has killed people's imagination and hardened their hearts.
    - finiteseries 5y ago
      The twentieth century and its experiments in alternative resource allocation and community building are not propaganda, it happened. It wasn’t live tweeted, but we do, actually, have records. Some people were even there!
      - jd115 5y ago
        Yes, yes we were.. and it's the last place we want to find ourselves again.
      - mistermann 5y ago
        propaganda: information, especially [but not exclusively; nuance abounds] of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. This reminds me of this article currently on the front page: https://quillette.com/2021/11/29/the-universal-structure-of-storytelling/ https://quillette.com/2021/11/29/the-universal-structure-of-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29408567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29408567 People think about and perceive reality in "stories" (processed heuristically), because that is how we communicate about it - in journalism, in conversations, on social media, almost everywhere (there are exceptions: software, hard sciences, etc [1]) - from the day we are born to the day we die. We don't really know any other form in daily practice, so we do not realize it - it is the fabric of reality. A (simplistic) alternative would be speaking to each other like ~autistic, emotionless, hyper-pedantic, object-oriented, robotic AI agents...which human beings tend to dislike, strongly. In this example, I've made an allegation (and made reference to one example of a story that (allegedly) involved propaganda): >> It's like propaganda (Our most sacred institution) has killed people's imagination and hardened their hearts. Now, I am countered ("debunked" in modern day increasingly popular subjective parlance, as opposed to "disproven" in objective parlance), by a ~story (which based on my experience, would "rank highly" among observers, perhaps due to its consistency with other stories: "records", "fact"-based journalism): > The twentieth century and its experiments in alternative resource allocation and community building are not propaganda, it happened. > It wasn’t live tweeted, but we do, actually, have records. Some people were even there! In no way did I objectively/physically assert that the entirety of "The twentieth century and its experiments in alternative resource allocation and community building" are propaganda or that they did not happen. In no way did I say that "the" (a rather cognitively magical word) events (the specifics of which we do not know (and do not realize we do not know), even completely leaving aside the infinitely complex underlying causality) of January 6 did not happen. However, to various agents/observers within this system that we live, I did say these things. It did not actually happen, but due to the nature of reality [2], if they are perceived as happening (which can occur in many ways), they then become Real (as opposed to True), and are then cognitively processed, stored, recovered (on demand), and perceived as reality itself. And if many agents agree upon a story, it then becomes "Truth" (and perceived as Truth), and then documented as Objective History. tl;dr: Plato's Allegory of the Cave may have some truth to it. [1] Interestingly, these domains tend to be massively more accomplished than the rest of reality. Whether the unusual way they deal in perception (extremely simplified: objectively rather than subjectively) has anything to do with that, I will leave as an exercise to the reader. [2] Reality is a very interesting word. In Scientific Materialistic oriented cultures, it is typically perceived (recursively, as "reality") as consisting of physical objects, and events involving physical objects. Reality does indeed consist of these things, but that is but a slice of the entirety of it. However, ideas such this can be easily debunked, because they "are" (another cognitively magical word) "woo woo" - and thus the local minima of Maya is maintained indefinitely. Ironically, this too is a story. Which story is more true, is also left as an exercise to the reader.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Capitalism may be the best economic model. The only alternative is a non-economic model: post-scarcity. A world where there's an abundance of goods and resources would have no need to economize at all. The internet is an example. Data is abundant and can be copied and distributed infinitely at virtually no cost. People actually have to impose artificial scarcity on data in order to retrofit an economic system into the virtual world.
povik 5y ago
I happen to come from that part of the world where something radically different has been tried out, and will also tell you capitalism is good (considering the alternatives).
themaninthedark 5y ago
(With apologies to Churchill) Many forms of commerce have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that capitalism is the worst form of commerce except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. But honestly, GGP replying with a one word answer "Capitalism" and to paraphrase your reply >"The system has brainwashed you" does no one here any good. Please expound on what system you would like to see implemented and why it would not have this problem. You will probably have to defend your ideas but that is what debate is for.
- ziddoap 5y ago
  >Please expound on what system you would like to see implemented and why it would not have this problem. While I agree simply saying "capitalism" and hand-waving at "brainwashing" are both not great conversation starters, your demands are equally unhelpful, no matter how nicely you phrase it. One does not require a solution to a problem in order to identify a problem.
- 7sidedmarble 5y ago
  >But honestly, GGP replying with a one word answer "Capitalism" and to paraphrase your reply >"The system has brainwashed you" does no one here any good. Please expound on what system you would like to see implemented and why it would not have this problem. Do you not see the double standard in this very post of yours? You're chastising him with 'please recommend what system we should use then' and at the same time claiming the advantage to capitalism is that it's an imperfect system, yet still better then anything else we've come up with. If you believe human beings have not thought of any better systems or ideas, then why would you ask him to produce one, other then you would just shut it down with that same argument? It just seems intellectually lazy. If you believe this then no one could ever sway you. At that point don't pretend to be interested in hearing alternatives, just say you've made up your mind.
jd115 5y ago
Quite the contrary. I have now lived half my life under a communist regime and half under a capitalist one. Let me be abundantly clear: I far prefer the latter. I like where it is, and I like where it's headed. I NEVER want to hear about communism ever again. Here's the main differences I see: 1. Capitalism is a social construct. It embraces human greed and builds upon it. That's why it works so well. 2. Communism is merely a short-term con scheme (granted, on a rather large scale). It embraces hypocrisy, pretends to shun greed, steals everyone's chips and runs, while making people build some idealistic nice stuff which all collapses to dust and misery the moment the top runs away with the money. 3. There is no 3. People like to wank about with all sorts of flowery ideas about capitalism minus the greed, but that's just communism really.
- scrose 5y ago
  What country do you live in that has a purely capitalist system? I’m curious how that would work out. Even the USA has a lot of socialist policies that primarily benefit the wealthy(ie. Taxpayer funded mortgage deductions)
- jklinger410 5y ago
  1. Communism is a social construct. It embraces human goodness and builds upon it. That's why it is ethical and good. 2. Capitalism is merely a short-term con scheme (granted, on a rather large scale.) It embraces hypocrisy, encourages greed, steals from the poor and gives to the rich, while making people build some idealistic idea of competitive fairness while burning the entire planet to shreds while the top run away with the resources and quality of life. 3. There is no 3. People like to pretend they understand world history and economics with all these false ideas that lack context of how capitalism is better, when it's just propaganda that hides the resources and military strategy that went behind the current layout of the world economy.
  - jd115 5y ago
    Adorable. You've never actually been on the receiving end of communism, have you? Seems like you just enjoy prescribing it and bashing what actually works (as all communists do). You stole my words verbatim. As all communists do (steal). Because they are completely devoid of any and all creativity and individuality. It's in the word itself. But hey, if we say that owning stuff is bad, we can get away with stealing as much as we want, right? Genius (not). Look, you can keep calling the black colour white, but it doesn't make it so. The only reason anyone can call communism good and continue to justify its horrendous monstrosity DECADES AFTER it flopped and sprayed diarrhoea everywhere, is because of incurable guilt consciousness. Which all communists have, because they know they're worthless. "Communism is a social construct"... my ass. There's never been anything more anti-social or more vile. Trust me, I am well aware of the other horrors of the 20th century. This one tops them all.

pydry 5y ago

Capitalism definitely has some of the best PR.

LanceH 5y ago
Yea, all the other systems.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]