Economy The Capitalism Crumble

Honestly, I think capitalism vs communism debates are largely incredibly stupid because most (the vast majority) people that participate them take the mental shortcut of economics in practice being a binary instead of a spectrum. As soon as you note that it's beneficial to move from one end of the spectrum, low IQ folks just bark out that you are advocating for the other side of the spectrum. It's beyond ridiculous and juvenile.

Anyhow, the other day I listened to Sam Harris talk about Techno-fascism. And Varoufakis has been going on about Techno-feudalism (saying we are largely moving past capitalism already - and ironically enough the tech explosion was fertilized by government spending not private capital). I find those takes and conversations to be very interesting.

I'll have to take a look at the population Birthgap documentary later, because that's actually something I have vehemently disagreed with - that population decline is gonna be the cause of some massive crash incoming as if everything about the economy is a population ponzi scheme instead of populations being able to self-fund if they have to.

This isnt and wasnt meant to be a capitalism vs communism debate though. This was just critiquing capitalism. Communism comes up for 2 main reasons:

1) Its one of the only 2 other systems people know, even if they dont know or understand how any of them actually function. People use aspects of communism and socialism all the time, which is another mirage of capitalism. Hell the capitalists depend on socialism lol

2) its part of the religion to decry. Like how religious people will get very upset very fast if you point out the discrepancies of their belief system. Either you MUST be a Devil worshipper, or you have no moral compass because of the objective morality thing.

People running in here to douse communism are missing the point. The point is sh*t is failing. And the "blame the Government" people have THE most favorable Government in power right now. Just as they did in the 80's. In fact, let's get some feedback from back then:



Hey looks like tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts on social spending worked out really well!! About as well as it's working out now...
 
This isnt and wasnt meant to be a capitalism vs communism debate though. This was just critiquing capitalism. Communism comes up for 2 main reasons:

1) Its one of the only 2 other systems people know, even if they dont know or understand how any of them actually function. People use aspects of communism and socialism all the time, which is another mirage of capitalism. Hell the capitalists depend on socialism lol

2) its part of the religion to decry. Like how religious people will get very upset very fast if you point out the discrepancies of their belief system. Either you MUST be a Devil worshipper, or you have no moral compass because of the objective morality thing.

People running in here to douse communism are missing the point. The point is sh*t is failing. And the "blame the Government" people have THE most favorable Government in power right now. Just as they did in the 80's. In fact, let's get some feedback from back then:



Hey looks like tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts on social spending worked out really well!! About as well as it's working out now...


That's true. Those turning the thread into that debate are effectively ruining it for reasons mentioned lol.
 
And please again show me your alternative to capitalism........

One that works,.one that's proven.......

Not that anyone needs to prove anything to Sherbro, but why use the qualifier "something proven?" Was capitalism proven? Was it guaranteed to work?

Using this qualifier demonstrates one of the symptoms of the fragility of the system, which is again, an almost religious adherence to it. This is like asking me what God you're supposed to worship instead of worshipping the Christian God if I could prove to you that the Christisn God sucks (slavery, genocide). My question would be, why do you HAVE to worship a God? That your world crumbles without certainty is a feelings argument. That's not going to stop me from critiquing what you attach your feelings to.

My aversion to heirarchies has been confronted here. I'm not naming a specific system because I dont have an ideological adherence to one. I've said already that I think a mixed economy is the right direction to go in, but how its mixed is likely to take some trial and error, to get bumpy, to hurt some feelings. Even if they're my own, if it works out better I'm fine with that. What I'm not at all fine with, is the erosion of democracy and the rights of my children because of the religion of the current system. I dont view that as "better"...and there are countless Historical examples of how it's not.
 
That's true. Those turning the thread into that debate are effectively ruining it for reasons mentioned lol.

that may have been my fault (unless it is contributions by a poster I am ignoring that are being referred to here) albeit I only referenced the capitalism/communism opposition in a particular limited context
 
That's true. Those turning the thread into that debate are effectively ruining it for reasons mentioned lol.
it 100% is because Canister isn't giving an alternative, we all know what the alternative is

dont be naive and give into his bullshit

We all can sit back and criticize shit, he's just moping like a poor wanting a gib me.
 
it 100% is because Canister isn't giving an alternative, we all know what the alternative is

Alternatives have been discussed numerous times in the thread. I've given my personal opinion AND acknowledged that I dont know how that looks, I mean I wouldn't. US Socialism right this second looks a lot like much more of my tax dollars going to corporations and to cover Argentina's socialized medicine and higher education (and Israel's) while my own Governnent tells me we cant afford it for my kids.

But your issue is you're consistently ignoring that large part of this discussion because you've decide you know me, and I'm an authoritarian Communist or whatever sh*t you've cooked up in your brain. But that's your problem, not mine.
 
that may have been my fault (unless it is contributions by a poster I am ignoring that are being referred to here) albeit I only referenced the capitalism/communism opposition in a particular limited context

It's definitely not your fault.
 
I remember one time a dude on the internet, this is a working dude, very average job, he tried to explain to me, in all bloody seriousness, that 'the problem with taxing rich people more is that studies have shown that taxing the rich more actually ends up affecting poor people most of all'.

'Leave aside that you don't know the 'studies', you haven't read those 'studies', you don't know who wrote those 'studies' and you have only seen them referred to, in the media, by politicians advocating on behalf of rich people, but bro, who do you think commissioned those 'studies'? Think there's a chance they were maybe commissioned by, uh, rich people?'

That dude sounds heavily indoctrinated. I was just thinking about how to break the indoctrination and honestly I dont think it can be done on a macro level. I think it has to be done smaller, and it does require pragmatism. There are areas of the World where I like aspects of what theyve done, and it doesnt matter how they're currently voting. Some are conservative, some are not. Some are authoritarian, some are not. I like Japanese transit, I dislike HOW they use it. I like US personal freedom, I dislike that it's often ties to hyper-Nationalism. I like protectionism to some extent, but not isolationism.

To me it's about ideas, not being ideological. And some of these solutions must be found municipallyn first. I'll give a small example. Car insurance in Nevada is astronomical right now. Likely a combination of algorithmic pricing plus that we DO have a lot of traffic accidents and DUI/DEI problems here in Vegas, the largest market. And yet we keep doing dumb City design. Expanding stroads and highways, never-ending construction, we have a running joke that our State Flower is the orange road cone. I attribute this to short-sightedness and incompetence. However the solution is right in front of our faces. The Strip is one of the only places pedestrians dont get killed regularly by speeding cars. That's because it's designed to be walkable despite having a large wide main stroad. There is a train, even though it's slow and old. You dont HAVE to drive. But stay anywhere off-strip and you're spending a ton on Uber, Lyft, or paying surge rates to rent a car.

I used to think this was an impossible task to tackle as well. Too big for local blocs, this video details some of the hurdles of thought needed to be overcome to make progress even where progress seems illogical:



I saw things like this and wondered why we dont think this way. Not about political affiliation, but just...better? Nothing Vegas has done is stopping the traffic deaths, similar to how doubling down on bad ideas isnt stopping the slowing of tourism. I started to think Americans just culturally cant do it. We are too forehead deep in "whatever immediately benefits the most well-off of us should benefit all of us" despite a 50+ year failure of this thought process. I mean it failed IMMEDIATELY the same way Faith Healers fail to cure any pr your ailments, and we kept believing. Kept paying in. Then recently I saw this:



I dont know a thing about Rochester, their demographics, how they voted. But what they did is pretty amazing because it goes against the common logic and made a lot of sense. There's more and more moves like this popping up, I just hope they spread fast enough, because that's how lasting change begins, not from the top down.
 
Alternatives have been discussed numerous times in the thread. I've given my personal opinion AND acknowledged that I dont know how that looks, I mean I wouldn't. US Socialism right this second looks a lot like much more of my tax dollars going to corporations and to cover Argentina's socialized medicine and higher education (and Israel's) while my own Governnent tells me we cant afford it for my kids.

But your issue is you're consistently ignoring that large part of this discussion because you've decide you know me, and I'm an authoritarian Communist or whatever sh*t you've cooked up in your brain. But that's your problem, not mine.
Look, I'm with you that education and health care should be the standard for American citizens. That's not socialism. That is properly allocating tax dollars collected from Capitalism.

I never made those assumptions, but keep on keeping on breh
 
No, it doesnt.

No it doesn't, it's literally a bundle of sticks bound together, it's a form of socialism...... strength in unity.

The whole WW2 was who's got the strongest form of socialism regarding Europe.......

French, Socialist
German, National Socialist
Russia, Communist
Italy, Fascism

That was Europe.........
 
Not that anyone needs to prove anything to Sherbro, but why use the qualifier "something proven?" Was capitalism proven? Was it guaranteed to work?

Using this qualifier demonstrates one of the symptoms of the fragility of the system, which is again, an almost religious adherence to it. This is like asking me what God you're supposed to worship instead of worshipping the Christian God if I could prove to you that the Christisn God sucks (slavery, genocide). My question would be, why do you HAVE to worship a God? That your world crumbles without certainty is a feelings argument. That's not going to stop me from critiquing what you attach your feelings to.

My aversion to heirarchies has been confronted here. I'm not naming a specific system because I dont have an ideological adherence to one. I've said already that I think a mixed economy is the right direction to go in, but how its mixed is likely to take some trial and error, to get bumpy, to hurt some feelings. Even if they're my own, if it works out better I'm fine with that. What I'm not at all fine with, is the erosion of democracy and the rights of my children because of the religion of the current system. I dont view that as "better"...and there are countless Historical examples of how it's not.

You didn't answer the question...... Because I actually don't think you can.

Then you ramble on..... About what aboutism.........

Then you drag Christianity into the situation, and start going on about slavery and genocide.....

Please reference to the parts in the bible that say you can enslave and murder people......

I'm not going to bother mentioning what religion has these very things in their text and it's also the communists favourite religion at the moment.....
 
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Btw i think incoming population decline will destroy current economic model since its based on constant growth and something else will take place.

Yes i happen to be watching doc about burth rates at moment lol



I watched it and it was pretty good, if not a bit over-dramatic. Thanks for sharing.

I think the issue is just so multi-faceted with no easy answer, and amusing that the film opens with world over-population hysteria, then not explaining very well why that just disappeared and why everyone was so wrong, and now the under-population hysteria comes in. These things become unfortunate much like very bad prognostications about global warming etc result in sceptics thinking there is nothing to be concerned about and it's all a con.

In short, i think
1) pensions should be self-funded/paid out by contributions during a generations own lifetime for their retirement, not pyramid schemes where old people are reliant on the young people,

2) in much of the world a trend where people are living worse off than the parents before,

3) Darwinian law of reciprocity has shrunk drastically as people now prioritize more a life of appealing to people outside of the Dunbar number -- images of consumption and luxury lifestyles to appeal to amorphous blobs of largely anonymous people, as opposed to prioritizing life toward family, close friends, etc. I heard someone say everyone has all these "friends" but absolutely nobody they can depend on to help them move their furniture. This impacts ability to have close relationships and partnering; there's a loneliness epidemic happening to people across society, not just amongst elderly,

4) to the films point, tech raised folks combined with worse economic factors of having to finish a lot more schooling just means people feel freed from debt significantly later in life,

5) was interesting to see that for every child up for adoption there are ~30 families trying to adopt it. Yet so many potential children are aborted per year,

6) hypergamy dislocation that the person in the video mentioned about a family now being about two hunters and no gatherers. The entire population is strongly encouraged to prioritize career over family, increasing labor supply and lowering wages. Making having families less affordable and folks prioritizing looking for lottery tickets (people that make much more money than they do etc),

7) paradox of choice, dating apps and unrealistic expectations,

8) our base necessities of food and shelter have never been more easily met, and having those have ushered in remarkably undisciplined people who haven't been humbled by nature to have to delay gratification and be patient, and flakiness and inability to depend on others to reciprocate and build with is increasingly difficult,

9) I think next step of the worry -- people like dogs and using them as child substitute as they are cheaper and provide affection without nearly the responsibility. i think what Elon and Jack Ma are thinking is just wait until a new entrant into the arena is the AI spouse or AI child that is programmed to your whims and desires without the stresses of having to provide financially, having headaches instead of wanting to satisfy you in any way you wish, etc. Or simply a plugged in metaverse that hijacks your neural receptors, instead of such AI robots.

In all honesty, there's probably never been a better argument for neo-ludditism, and appreciation of Amish philosophies LOL. It seems kind of odd that the advancement of nuclear weapons turns out to be a lifesaver through mutually assured disaster, yet folks on mass kind of just do a ceasing of procreation through the bread and circus capabilities of technological society playing with our brains. But at the end of the day, I believe in pendulum swings and hope folks can course correct.
 
Speech to text? Again, very weird typo

Maybe. One of those things that is more pathetic, is some American guy benefitting from Capitalism, going on and on about how great Socialism is, despite it's gargantuan failure rate over centuries.

It's pretty obvious that neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism work and that it's about finding the right balance between the two. You don't really think pure capitalism works.
 
*Mod you delete I am meaning post to PowerSlap not hate dungeon why I cannot delete on myself?*
 
There is no reason to overthrow capitalism, only to limit excessive personal wealth and to invest in social programs.

That's literally all that needs to happen both nationally and internationally.

This is part of it. The other part is the creation of industries. As Tyler Durden do eloquently put it:

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh*t we don't need."

This does back to Bernays and his conversion of "propaganda" to "public relations." His efforts to get people to do things, buy things, based on wants as opposed to needs, which was what corporations wanted him to do:



This has literally destroyed actual prosperity for Anericans, as opposed to debt and shareholder economies. Which are also fake. Remember what I pointed out earlier in the thread, institutions also capitalize on the greed of the billionaires by offering those loans against their "net worth." Fake money given against a bullsh*t speculative valuation. Because these people are desperate to see a certain number on a piece of paper, or their phones, even they live in perpetual debt. Trump got to the Presidency doing this and has spent the bulk of it garnering more wealth to get out from under that.

But what about regular Americans. How has this bullsh*t propagandized economy hurt us? I mean here is ine basic way many of us see every day. The nonsensical money trap that is our lawns:



People have almost an emotional attachment to their lawns so much that its parodied in films and movies.



The showing of our little personal plantations is symbolic of success and peace:



And yet they're arguably the worst, most costly, least water efficient things to have in front of our homes. Recently St. George Utah was petitioning for more of the Lake Meade reservoir than they usually ask for, a reservoir that's dwindling:



The reason why? They were building homes for tentative owners who were demanding lush lawns.

Ita stuff like this. Capitalism is supposed to be the antithesis of a "planned economy" and yet so much of what we do isnt demand or market driven. Its created for us by those with wealth who want to steer us so they get more wealth.
 
There is no reason to overthrow capitalism, only to limit excessive personal wealth and to invest in social programs.

That's literally all that needs to happen both nationally and internationally.

This is a better response, thank you, there needs to be a rebalance, the left and the right, neither should be in control totally, it leads to totalitarian governments.... From both sides......
 
This is part of it. The other part is the creation of industries. As Tyler Durden do eloquently put it:

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh*t we don't need."

This does back to Bernays and his conversion of "propaganda" to "public relations." His efforts to get people to do things, buy things, based on wants as opposed to needs, which was what corporations wanted him to do:



This has literally destroyed actual prosperity for Anericans, as opposed to debt and shareholder economies. Which are also fake. Remember what I pointed out earlier in the thread, institutions also capitalize on the greed of the billionaires by offering those loans against their "net worth." Fake money given against a bullsh*t speculative valuation. Because these people are desperate to see a certain number on a piece of paper, or their phones, even they live in perpetual debt. Trump got to the Presidency doing this and has spent the bulk of it garnering more wealth to get out from under that.

But what about regular Americans. How has this bullsh*t propagandized economy hurt us? I mean here is ine basic way many of us see every day. The nonsensical money trap that is our lawns:



People have almost an emotional attachment to their lawns so much that its parodied in films and movies.



The showing of our little personal plantations is symbolic of success and peace:



And yet they're arguably the worst, most costly, least water efficient things to have in front of our homes. Recently St. George Utah was petitioning for more of the Lake Meade reservoir than they usually ask for, a reservoir that's dwindling:



The reason why? They were building homes for tentative owners who were demanding lush lawns.

Ita stuff like this. Capitalism is supposed to be the antithesis of a "planned economy" and yet so much of what we do isnt demand or market driven. Its created for us by those with wealth who want to steer us so they get more wealth.


That's crazy.

Here, people are more into astroturf/fake grass and that itself becomes an issue not least for drainage but also for wildlife.

Our lawn isn't very big but we will let it grow a bit to help bees. We probably don't need to now though because we've got extensive lavender which gets hundreds and hundreds of bees a day.

Can't imagine ever getting obsessed with a lush green lawn though.
 
That's crazy.

Here, people are more into astroturf/fake grass and that itself becomes an issue not least for drainage but also for wildlife.

Our lawn isn't very big but we will let it grow a bit to help bees. We probably don't need to now though because we've got extensive lavender which gets hundreds and hundreds of bees a day.

Can't imagine ever getting obsessed with a lush green lawn though.

That's fantastic. I mentioned earlier but my wife is an environmental biologist. She works as a health Inspector but that was her degree. We dont own our home (we plan to out in an offer for it) but there are a lot of fruit trees, flowers, and she grows zucchini, strawberries, and herbs. The orange and mandarin trees come in handy when they fruit. There was an apple tree too but it was dead when we moved in. The front yard is desert landscape. There's minimal grass.

But its huts how chemical companies engineered American life so we would have to buy their products, which also put our cities in perpetual debt with suburbs. And that's on top of the perpetual debt from stroad/highway maintenance.

I just really dont see how what we know as capitalism isnt a scam. And I'm not seeing soind argument as to why private ownership of the means of production doesn't inevitably lead to this. AN-CAPs always want us to blame the Government, but the Government is corrupted by capital.
 
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