Capitalism is no longer needed

[sixone]

That's fine expect that isn't how nature works. Nature is mainly based on interdependent, symbiotic relationships where no being takes more than what is needed to survive. Thus creating a system of equilibrium based on what is available and what is taken. There is no 'greed' in nature. The process of natural selection has become distorted and misused in order to justify a human action.

I know it's your dream to reach the top of some pyramid and dominate all, but please don't use nature as your justification. It is an insult to nature. Maybe,you should live on an island where you don't have to depend on anyone else.

Even so, human nature doesn't always act in its own best interest. Centuries of "enlightenment" haven't changed that - nor has evolution.

 

[brianmanahan]

I mean there is about a 45% chance your name is Corky.

he pulls off the 'life goes on' reference YESSSSSSSSSSS!

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

That's fine expect that isn't how nature works. Nature is mainly based on interdependent, symbiotic relationships where no being takes more than what is needed to survive. Thus creating a system of equilibrium based on what is available and what is taken. There is no 'greed' in nature. The process of natural selection has become distorted and misused in order to justify a human action.

I know it's your dream to reach the top of some pyramid and dominate all, but please don't use nature as your justification. It is an insult to nature. Maybe,you should live on an island where you don't have to depend on anyone else.

You are ignoring natural law. The natural law of humans and any herd or pack animals dictates that there be dominance and submission. There are hierarchies which exist and one might pretend they do not exist, but nature does not back that up. Alphas get the mates. They get the first pick of food. They come first. Personal gain is part of natural law and that will always be at odds with other interests. In that sense capitalism IS natural law as far as humans are concerned because it is a means to that end. If anything the suggestion that these aren't needed are irrelevant to nature. It doesn't make anything right, but it is what it is and we fight against that nature to keep the few from abusing the many.

 

[Kaido]

We live in a time of post scarcity and the profit mechanism which is inherent to free market capitalism is no longer needed. We should follow the system of nature, not a monetary one

I understand what you are saying, you just happened to have hit a nerve with ATOT tonight

We do live in a time of post-scarcity, but it's really more of a time of the possibility of post-scarcity. We have enough for everyone, but our system is not setup to share freely with everyone. And part of that reason is human nature, which is why free market capitalism is still needed to some degree. People are driven by incentives, whether it's on a personal level to get up & get dressed to go earn a paycheck for a day, or to make significant advances as mankind. The Russians went to space; we launched the moon program. Hitler started WWII; we created a ridiculous amount of technology that took us right out of our nationwide depression.

Once you go outside the borders of the US, or even outside the borders of the suburbs, life can get rough pretty fast. A lady the next town over died last year in a snowstorm because she couldn't afford heat and used charcoal to heat her apartment with the doors & windows closed. So not only do we lack shared resources, but also basic education in many circumstances. There are nearly 2 million homeless people in the United States alone; the conservative estimate worldwide is 200 million people are homeless. And yet people are literally dying to get into the US - refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, for example.

The problem isn't that we don't have enough, it's that we don't manage it right. But it's a difficult problem to solve based on our existing systems. If you help people out with welfare, the natural thing to do is become dependent and expect a handout, and then create a family culture of expecting aid that gets passed onto the kids. People need incentives because we are inherently lazy. Fortunately we are stuck in physical bodies that need shelter, food, water, warmth, clothing, etc. so we have to get out & acquire those things.

Personally I'm a mess without a job - I require the structure of going to work every day and also showing up to class for school because otherwise I just turn into a slob, haha. Some people have good self-discipline, but most don't - statistically 2/3 of Americans are overweight and 1/3 of Americans are obese. Obviously we are not very good about self-limiting ourselves!

We have the science & technology to take care of everyone on the planet. Let's look at just food - if you watch the documentary Forks over Knives, they show that if we switched to a vegetarian diet, everyone in the world could eat 7 times over with just the food we feed the cattle that we eat (corn, wheat, etc.). Lack of resources is not an issue. Heck, just check out the Soylent shake - a complete meal in powder form, just add water! Spread that to third-world countries and eliminate starvation!

https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body

But the problem isn't lack of available resources, it's about how those resources are controlled. We try to drop food into Africa, but it gets stolen by evil dictators & other bad men. There are issues everywhere because it's human nature to be selfish, whether it's running a country or running a business. Why do we have a minimum wage? Because some employers would go even lower if they could! It's the same reason we have a lot of laws - people take advantage of situations and of other people.

I think that's partly why capitalism works so well - it provides an incentive for people to create businesses and to work at businesses. You're not stuck in a cast system; you can change your fate simply by working at it. If you're poor, you can get assistance to get out of that situation. Schools, scholarships, all kinds of aid, homeless shelters, food kitchens, all kinds of stuff is available to help you out of your bad situation - if you want the help and are willing to try.

Plus, people take advantage of situations. People will steal ideas & products and capitalize on them. There's endless stories in business about that - just look at Bill Gates stealing the GUI concept from Steve Jobs. We need laws and we need incentives, especially physically-driven incentives like food, because we're all pretty childish. If everyone acted like a responsible adult, sure, we really wouldn't need all that stuff because it wouldn't be an issue, but it is, so we have to create systems to deal with that.

In an ideal world, it would be great if everyone just shared with each other and we took care of the handicap, elderly, mentally ill, and other groups of people in difficult situations, but there's such a variety of maturity between people that it becomes a difficult problem. Heck, look at simple, stupid stuff like McDonald's getting sued when that lady spilled hot coffee on herself & got burned, and won a bunch of money that ultimately made them have to print "caution: hot" on every coffee container that they make. Duh, really? But that's how some people choose to behave and it kind of ruins it for the rest of us

Ideally, sure - it would be great if we didn't need capitalism, but the reality is that most of humanity needs incentives in order to life productive lives, so in some ways it's a very good thing to have. We have enough resources to make it happen, we are just too childish as a whole to implement it properly. Someday. Just not soon

 

[Kaido]

Even so, human nature doesn't always act in its own best interest. Centuries of "enlightenment" haven't changed that - nor has evolution.

Every civilization in history wipes itself out every few hundred years, so yeah, we're pretty dumb when it comes to learning from history

I'm convinced 99% of our problems are self-inflicted, and the other 1% can be avoided half the time. Stuff like dealing with natural disasters - we lost about 1,800 people in Katrina, but other countries lose thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands in typhoons, floods, etc. Why? We have the technology to deal with it better - communications systems for mass warnings, building standards, production factories to produce improved living situations, etc.

And mostly, it's self-inflicted. I was at a health seminar recently and learned that the three major killers - heart disease, stroke, and diabetes - are all preventable. I had no idea that heart disease was preventable, even with pre-disposed genetics. And we know this and we still give McDonalds billions annually. The point is we're kind of dumb in general - the information is there, the resources are there, the technology is there - we just don't always work together too well as a whole

 

[Kaido]

The best kind of system would be one that is friendly towards small business. Eliminate patents, copyright and all that crap (only big corporations can realistically afford that and have the resources to think of every little thing to patent not to mention the resources to sue everyone) and get rid of lobbying and all the influence corps can have on the government and vise versa. The government should not be able to help corps and corps should not be able to help the government. If there's one thing China has right is the way businesses work. Look at all the product rip offs. That's a GOOD thing. If I come up with a product idea and someone decides to rip it off and recreate it, and they can do it for cheaper, or improve on it, then all the power to them. This is what you call healthy competition. It provides the consumer more choices, and more business opportunities for people to try and see if they came make an existing product better, cheaper, or find other reason to convince people they should buy it.

Here, all the laws favor big corps. You can't even make a basic youtube promo video these days without being flagged for copyright because some big corp owns a song you used or something.

Capitalism is evil, corps have one goal and only one goal, and it's to maximize profits, at the expense of consumers and at the expense of employees.

CEO: "We only made 44.32 billion this year, that's only 3.1b more than last year and our goal was 5. Time to lay off a bunch of people, and lower product quality. Hey, we can skip all the health and safety stuff too!" CEO gets a bonus. 30,000 people are out of a job.

I would say, let this apply to big businesses as well. I'm a huge Apple fanboy & love their design philosophy of "simple + it just works", but their legal stuff against Samsung is ridiculous in my mind. Sure, Samsung ripped off the iPhone design nearly 1:1, but come on - people have fingers and need buttons to push, and there's only so much design work you can do with a flat, hand-grippable touchscreen device. They're all going to look the same aside from screen size & color - give me a break.

Politicians are generally incentive-driven, Type-A personalities, so when you pair that with the lobbyist system, you kind of get a broken mess. It's a "buyer beware" system for everything public in life - food, politics, whatever. Companies will take of their people if it's in their best interests to do so, but as the saying goes, somethings you have to "make the hard decisions!" Ridiculous. Lay off 1,000 people supporting their families and the CEO's get millions that could have kept those people employed. It's shameful, but that's the game that exists. Same idea with getting a degree in school - it's a game, but it's also the golden ticket that gets you in a lot of doors, even if you have no clue what you're doing.

 

[olds]

We live in a time of post scarcity and the profit mechanism which is inherent to free market capitalism is no longer needed. We should follow the system of nature, not a monetary one

WTF? My local Lowe's has tons of posts.

 

[olds]

...


Hell, anyone got any hair to spare?

Too much. I have dark hair that is 50% gray. It's all over the fucking bathroom floor. I lose 10# a day and I still have a full head of hair. My balls on the other hand...

 

[destrekor]

We are not in post-scarcity.
Not by a long-shot.

How did you possibly arrive at that conclusion? We have many technological and agricultural advances yet to discover, and a global challenge to develop economically, together. As all the third-world nations "come online", in terms of industry and connectivity, and grow economically , we'll be challenged yet again. As they settle into solid economies, and if all the world settles in such a way, then population growth will settle (stronger economies, and more peaceful environments, tend to lower national birth rates to replacement levels, if not lower - which is an entirely different problem if that goes on too long).

You don't even have to factor in the third world countries to realize we aren't post-scarcity. Commodities are incredibly volatile, we are still very dependent upon non-renewable resources, disease and weather severely impact both crop and livestock, regularly, and all inflation factored in, the cost of all products and production continues to increase.

Not everyone has access to running water and plumbing/sewage, either.

The wife, the counselor, says that probably 50% of us have mental issues.

You should seek help. Just sayin.

I'd wager far more. Yet less than 50%, for sure, truly need any assistance. I think a large majority of the population has mental issues of some sort - our genetics and childhood/adolescent rearing, combined, haven't really lent themselves all too well toward developing a brain and CNS with the "genetically perfect" growth pattern and neurotransmitter balance. And even then, not that many people really get the perfect balance of nutrition - which, especially in formative years (first ~25 years for the brain, give or take a few, when considered in its entirety), nutrition is critically important to neural tissue growth and repair. Plus the right family situation or regional location for access to good education.

So many variables are NOT working in mankind's favor here. Genetics aren't perfect, and our brain, an animal brain coupled with incredible consciousness, is incredibly delicate when it comes to everything that goes into developing it. Most people have many genetic flaws - and I think, without advanced medicine (gene therapy?), global health is only going to decline even as we conquer actual pathogenic diseases, as the rate of genetic disease or predisposition to disabling conditions grows (unless we can, say, defeat cancer upon immediate treatment after discovery regardless of progression, dare I say in an almost out-patient type approach).

 

[ralfy]

What OP said, especially given increasing debt, peak oil, and global warming, together with environmental damage.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What OP said, especially given increasing debt, peak oil

aka scarcity

 

[MagickMan]

Follow the laws of nature to bring technology and automation to meet the needs of all. We live in a time of post scarcity and no longer need the profit mechanism

Da fuq you say? Have you ever actually visited a city with >1M people? There's a lot of "scarcity" out there.

 

[MagickMan]

That you're Mammador, or whatever your name used to be.

Yep, it is. Time to ban him again.

 

[JMapleton]

Capitalism is human nature. Human nature is greed. They are one in the same.

Capitalism works because is accepts the fact that humans are greedy.

Socialism hides that fact and pretends were are not. But in the end socialism is ruined because of greedy (and sometimes incompetent) bureaucrats. So it just ends up becoming crony capitalism.

Socialism would work if people were naturally altruistic. But they're not. That's why real capitalism works.

 

[sixone]

Capitalism is human nature. Human nature is greed. They are one in the same.

Capitalism works because is accepts the fact that humans are greedy.

Socialism hides that fact and pretends were are not. But in the end socialism is ruined because of greedy (and sometimes incompetent) bureaucrats. So it just ends up becoming crony capitalism.

Socialism would work if people were naturally altruistic. But they're not. That's why real capitalism works.

Socialism is also ruined by people who put laziness above greed. Those people will always suffer under capitalism. Our current system doesn't let them suffer enough to motivate them to change their priorities.

 

[ralfy]

Capitalism is human nature. Human nature is greed. They are one in the same.

I'm not sure about this. From what I gathered, modern capitalism began with enclosures only during the late middle ages.

Capitalism works because is accepts the fact that humans are greedy.

I think it works because of multiple factors that come into play. It will not be sustainable for similar reasons.

Socialism hides that fact and pretends were are not. But in the end socialism is ruined because of greedy (and sometimes incompetent) bureaucrats. So it just ends up becoming crony capitalism.

My sense is socialism comes closer to human nature, i.e., the need for cooperation in order to survive. Bureaucracy, etc., take place outside human nature and are enabled through technology.

Also, all capitalist systems eventually become crony capitalist ones because of eventual accumulation of wealth by a few.

Socialism would work if people were naturally altruistic. But they're not. That's why real capitalism works.

Actually, "real capitalism" works because of principles similar to altruism. That is, the capitalist can only profit if more consumers buy his goods and services. But consumers are also ultimately his workers who buy those goods through wages, which are part of the capitalist's costs.

What breaks the cycle is credit created by banks, which is why not surprisingly banks control the global economy. That's also why much of the wealth of the same capitalist economy consists of money, which are essentially numbers in hard drives.