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You’ve described all of late stage capitalism + democracy, for things you agree with and things you don’t. This is as good as it gets when money has any influe

You’ve described all of late stage capitalism + democracy, for things you agree with and things you don’t. This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy.

godelski 3y ago
> This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy. I agree with this but I think the problem is bigger than "capitalism" and "democracy" (quotes because it seems none of us can agree on these -- to be fair -- vague definitions). Capital is more than money, and capital is what is abused. Capital can be your house, where you live, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and so on. Regardless of ruling systems there are no (other than short lived) cases where this imbalance does not exist and creep larger. The reason I hate these "yep that's capitalism for yah" comments is not that there aren't things to criticize about capitalism (if you can't criticize a system you're in trouble) but because it hinders the ability to have this conversation. I'm sure the conditions will relax as we approach post scarcity but there is no possible means to have true equality on all levels. Capitalism, socialism, whatever, all need to have a real discussion about how to place people into power while minimizing the ability to influence those people while maximizing the ability to do good for people. Which some of these seem to be in direct opposition from one another. A part I see clearly missing is the temporal factor in all of this. It does not matter if you elect someone who is a saint if the environment will corrupt them. Nor is there a way to have an environment that is not rapidly changing. So how do you create a system that can adapt (be iterative) but not be influenced by those with more power/capital? If we can't have this discussion it doesn't matter much which system we choose because the truth is that you can't maximize both because they're not orthogonal.
Gud 3y ago
This is not true. Switzerland has a much more evolved democracy than the rest of the (so called) democracies. https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik-geschichte/politisches-system.html https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik-ge...

You’ve described all of late stage capitalism + democracy, for things you agree with and things you don’t. This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy.

godelski 3y ago

> This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy. I agree with this but I think the problem is bigger than "capitalism" and "democracy" (quotes because it seems none of us can agree on these -- to be fair -- vague definitions). Capital is more than money, and capital is what is abused. Capital can be your house, where you live, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and so on. Regardless of ruling systems there are no (other than short lived) cases where this imbalance does not exist and creep larger. The reason I hate these "yep that's capitalism for yah" comments is not that there aren't things to criticize about capitalism (if you can't criticize a system you're in trouble) but because it hinders the ability to have this conversation. I'm sure the conditions will relax as we approach post scarcity but there is no possible means to have true equality on all levels. Capitalism, socialism, whatever, all need to have a real discussion about how to place people into power while minimizing the ability to influence those people while maximizing the ability to do good for people. Which some of these seem to be in direct opposition from one another. A part I see clearly missing is the temporal factor in all of this. It does not matter if you elect someone who is a saint if the environment will corrupt them. Nor is there a way to have an environment that is not rapidly changing. So how do you create a system that can adapt (be iterative) but not be influenced by those with more power/capital? If we can't have this discussion it doesn't matter much which system we choose because the truth is that you can't maximize both because they're not orthogonal.

Gud 3y ago

This is not true. Switzerland has a much more evolved democracy than the rest of the (so called) democracies. https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik-geschichte/politisches-system.html https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik-ge...