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There will always be someone, in our system, capable of taking the opportunities that they're given and becoming a billionaire. All of these great inventions ar

There will always be someone, in our system, capable of taking the opportunities that they're given and becoming a billionaire. All of these great inventions are nothing but the result of years and years of societal effort; I mean, in the case of Musk he is now one of the richest men thanks to Tesla a company and products he didn't create but bought! Of course, he did a lot of work to get the company to where it is and that's amazing... but I think these people like to think of themselves as market-creators instead of simply market-discoverers if that makes sense. And also, I guess I didn't emphasised this point enough but I don't really think Elon Musk is not, say, more knowledgeable in many areas that the average person. I think that is in fact true, but when you are dealing with politics there is so much more that should be considered. It might not be obvious but who makes a decision is as important as what the decision is. When things go right, we can all be happy, but when things go wrong and things will go wrong a shared decision is much better for society than a decision that was made by a single individual. In reality, what Musk is describing is nothing new, these systems of governance have been explored and discussed at length for century if not thousands of years! And I this illustrates very well how Musk is walking proof that what he's saying is wrong: he doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to governance. He thinks he knows the right answer to questions that people spend their entire lives exploring and he doesn't really engage in any serious way with all the literature and work that's been done in this area. And finally, here's my personal opinion on the matter of governance: I think the average person might be better suited to make a good decision for a very simple reason, an average person will not have the ego that Musk has and is most likely willing to change their minds. Though our modern political structures do not really allow for people to actually change their minds a lot, there are plenty of deliberative-democracy experiments done in Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, etc. that have shown very promising results in allowing groups of people to actually make well informed decisions on very touchy subjects. There are good structures and proposals out there and I've never really seen Musk even consider these; most likely he doesn't know about them... but then you should ask yourself: if he's so interested, then why doesn't he actually engage in the topic deeply? Ultimately, he's a businessman and he's more worried or at least as worried about making money than he is about making the world a better place. I think he truly believes making money and improving the world are compatible, and I'm not saying it might not be that way, but to me that in itself is a discussion worth having and I'm not sure how dogmatic he is in this view but considering he is a billionaire I'd be almost willing to bet that he has a pretty set view in this regard.

raydiatian 4y ago
> Elon didn’t create Tesla, he bought it! The company didn’t even have a car when he “bought it”. Nobody drives the lotus. Elon is responsible for pushing Tesla to scale—why are people so enamored with this clearly fallacious narrative? You even go on to say that he did a lot of work etc etc. so what does it have to do with anything? > Market creators vs market discoverers Is math created or discovered? The “market” for EVs was nonexistent in the early days of Tesla. So no, it doesn’t make sense. > All this shit about governance (and your clear affinity for socialism or communism) With all due respect, the only thing that has been proven not to work is everything. Communism ends in tears, capitalism ends in fire. It’s becomes humans are bound to the second law of entropy. Communism might work better if we all had a little brain chip (not Elon’s) in our skulls that gave us a kick of dopamine when our we gave our money to the communal pot. Until then our biology runs contrary to communism being functional. > Avg person is better suited to make small decisions, and all that bs The irony is that you’re here proposing that nobody should be allowed to make big decisions, which is a bigger decision than anybody has ever made. Bigger than Nagasaki. > modern political structures don’t allow ppl to change their minds a lot What is centrism? Despite me lambasting your opinion, I have a core faith in capitalism over the alternatives but absolutely detest the Republican Party for what it’s become and won’t vote Republican for at least a decade or more. ???? > Musk hasn’t considered direct democracy I mean I’m not Musk’s keeper but, he has, and he has historically disregarded direct democracy as chaos. That’s his opinion. If you think someone is the devil you might study them before you parrot the Reddit cliff notes on the person. I guess you haven’t really “considered” Musk.
- jerojero 4y ago
  Math is a language we use to describe natural phenomenon. Mathematical language is created but the fundamentals are discovered. Our brains have specific neural pathways that encode concepts that encode the fundamentals of mathematics such as the concept of containers, of "more" and "less" and so on. >With all due respect, the only thing that has been proven not to work is everything. Communism ends in tears, capitalism ends in fire. It’s becomes humans are bound to the second law of entropy. Communism might work better if we all had a little brain chip (not Elon’s) in our skulls that gave us a kick of dopamine when our we gave our money to the communal pot. Until then our biology runs contrary to communism being functional. I actually recommend a book called "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber which actually questions this idea of our biology dictating one or another type of societal structure. It's a very interesting read. Let me first say that societies are not just its economic system (so capitalist mode of production, socialist, communist, etc.) but also a cultural and political one. Not only that but an economic system itself is composed of different parts as well: markets are a component of capitalism but markets are NOT capitalism. Markets exist in feudal system and they can also exist in socialist systems. Another component of capitalism is private property which is NOT the same as personal property, so this is the difference between owning a business and owning a house. My personal view is that decisions are better made when more people that are affected by it are involved in making such a decision, it is why I believe firmly in Democracies versus Monarchies. But firms in modern capitalist systems follow monarchic structures of governance as opposed to democratic ones. And in any case, I have lots of critiques of modern representative democratic systems anyway. With this said, I think you're actually pretty wrong in thinking that our biology runs contrary to sharing economies. It's true that we are not ants but humans are hyper-social creatures and countries in Europe are definitely leagues above the USA when it comes to "sharing to a communal pot" and as David Graeber shows very well in his book there are even much more extreme of sharing societies (that btw, are not communists). >The irony is that you’re here proposing that nobody should be allowed to make big decisions, which is a bigger decision than anybody has ever made. Bigger than Nagasaki. I'm proposing a view, I'm not imposing it. Everyone is allowed of course to propose, to discuss and ultimately to decide. But decisions such as "what kind of political system we should have" are decisions that have never been taken in a fully democratic way. Modern societies are all constitutional-based republics but think about who and the conditions that gave rise to these texts! I recommend here a book by a chilean author called "Systemic Corruption: Constitutional ideas for an anti-oligarchic republic" that goes in-depth about the history of different constitutions and republics starting with Greek and Roman history all the way to modern constitutions. >What is centrism? Despite me lambasting your opinion, I have a core faith in capitalism over the alternatives but absolutely detest the Republican Party for what it’s become and won’t vote Republican for at least a decade or more. But do you honestly believe that the US political system is balanced in any way? It's a bipartisan system, by definition there is no center. You'd need at least a system with 3 parties to be able to have a center. But not only that, from the outside (I live in Australia) the US political system looks to be shifted entirely to the right of the political spectrum! Republicans are not "the right" democrats are. Republicans are quite literally the far-right, they're no better than Meloni, Lepen, etc. in Europe! Think about what the political spectrum looks like in European countries where you actually still have active communist and socialist parties with people in congress! I mean Germany has just nationalised a big energy distribution company in lieu of the energy crisis; that's not a decision you'd ever see in America. >I mean I’m not Musk’s keeper but, he has, and he has historically disregarded direct democracy as chaos. That’s his opinion. Stating something, disregarding it is not the same as engaging with it. Switzerland is probably one of the most orderly democracies in the world and their core tenant is direct democracy so how could anyone disregard such an option? Has Musk read any critique to Plato's republic? To engage with something is to read through it, to read critiques to it. Anyone that simply "disregards" an entire political philosophy seems to me like they are not really interested in engaging with the topic very well. As such, I'm not really disregarding Musks ideas but I'm offering you an extensive set of reasons on why I disagree with it. Just saying "direct democracy is chaos" is such a simple statement that does not really engage in any profound way with the whys and hows. Every good political structure requires balance.

raydiatian 4y ago

> Elon didn’t create Tesla, he bought it! The company didn’t even have a car when he “bought it”. Nobody drives the lotus. Elon is responsible for pushing Tesla to scale—why are people so enamored with this clearly fallacious narrative? You even go on to say that he did a lot of work etc etc. so what does it have to do with anything? > Market creators vs market discoverers Is math created or discovered? The “market” for EVs was nonexistent in the early days of Tesla. So no, it doesn’t make sense. > All this shit about governance (and your clear affinity for socialism or communism) With all due respect, the only thing that has been proven not to work is everything. Communism ends in tears, capitalism ends in fire. It’s becomes humans are bound to the second law of entropy. Communism might work better if we all had a little brain chip (not Elon’s) in our skulls that gave us a kick of dopamine when our we gave our money to the communal pot. Until then our biology runs contrary to communism being functional. > Avg person is better suited to make small decisions, and all that bs The irony is that you’re here proposing that nobody should be allowed to make big decisions, which is a bigger decision than anybody has ever made. Bigger than Nagasaki. > modern political structures don’t allow ppl to change their minds a lot What is centrism? Despite me lambasting your opinion, I have a core faith in capitalism over the alternatives but absolutely detest the Republican Party for what it’s become and won’t vote Republican for at least a decade or more. ???? > Musk hasn’t considered direct democracy I mean I’m not Musk’s keeper but, he has, and he has historically disregarded direct democracy as chaos. That’s his opinion. If you think someone is the devil you might study them before you parrot the Reddit cliff notes on the person. I guess you haven’t really “considered” Musk.

jerojero 4y ago
Math is a language we use to describe natural phenomenon. Mathematical language is created but the fundamentals are discovered. Our brains have specific neural pathways that encode concepts that encode the fundamentals of mathematics such as the concept of containers, of "more" and "less" and so on. >With all due respect, the only thing that has been proven not to work is everything. Communism ends in tears, capitalism ends in fire. It’s becomes humans are bound to the second law of entropy. Communism might work better if we all had a little brain chip (not Elon’s) in our skulls that gave us a kick of dopamine when our we gave our money to the communal pot. Until then our biology runs contrary to communism being functional. I actually recommend a book called "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber which actually questions this idea of our biology dictating one or another type of societal structure. It's a very interesting read. Let me first say that societies are not just its economic system (so capitalist mode of production, socialist, communist, etc.) but also a cultural and political one. Not only that but an economic system itself is composed of different parts as well: markets are a component of capitalism but markets are NOT capitalism. Markets exist in feudal system and they can also exist in socialist systems. Another component of capitalism is private property which is NOT the same as personal property, so this is the difference between owning a business and owning a house. My personal view is that decisions are better made when more people that are affected by it are involved in making such a decision, it is why I believe firmly in Democracies versus Monarchies. But firms in modern capitalist systems follow monarchic structures of governance as opposed to democratic ones. And in any case, I have lots of critiques of modern representative democratic systems anyway. With this said, I think you're actually pretty wrong in thinking that our biology runs contrary to sharing economies. It's true that we are not ants but humans are hyper-social creatures and countries in Europe are definitely leagues above the USA when it comes to "sharing to a communal pot" and as David Graeber shows very well in his book there are even much more extreme of sharing societies (that btw, are not communists). >The irony is that you’re here proposing that nobody should be allowed to make big decisions, which is a bigger decision than anybody has ever made. Bigger than Nagasaki. I'm proposing a view, I'm not imposing it. Everyone is allowed of course to propose, to discuss and ultimately to decide. But decisions such as "what kind of political system we should have" are decisions that have never been taken in a fully democratic way. Modern societies are all constitutional-based republics but think about who and the conditions that gave rise to these texts! I recommend here a book by a chilean author called "Systemic Corruption: Constitutional ideas for an anti-oligarchic republic" that goes in-depth about the history of different constitutions and republics starting with Greek and Roman history all the way to modern constitutions. >What is centrism? Despite me lambasting your opinion, I have a core faith in capitalism over the alternatives but absolutely detest the Republican Party for what it’s become and won’t vote Republican for at least a decade or more. But do you honestly believe that the US political system is balanced in any way? It's a bipartisan system, by definition there is no center. You'd need at least a system with 3 parties to be able to have a center. But not only that, from the outside (I live in Australia) the US political system looks to be shifted entirely to the right of the political spectrum! Republicans are not "the right" democrats are. Republicans are quite literally the far-right, they're no better than Meloni, Lepen, etc. in Europe! Think about what the political spectrum looks like in European countries where you actually still have active communist and socialist parties with people in congress! I mean Germany has just nationalised a big energy distribution company in lieu of the energy crisis; that's not a decision you'd ever see in America. >I mean I’m not Musk’s keeper but, he has, and he has historically disregarded direct democracy as chaos. That’s his opinion. Stating something, disregarding it is not the same as engaging with it. Switzerland is probably one of the most orderly democracies in the world and their core tenant is direct democracy so how could anyone disregard such an option? Has Musk read any critique to Plato's republic? To engage with something is to read through it, to read critiques to it. Anyone that simply "disregards" an entire political philosophy seems to me like they are not really interested in engaging with the topic very well. As such, I'm not really disregarding Musks ideas but I'm offering you an extensive set of reasons on why I disagree with it. Just saying "direct democracy is chaos" is such a simple statement that does not really engage in any profound way with the whys and hows. Every good political structure requires balance.