God 2.0: The free market

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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by duckzilla »

chris1089 wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:There are actually people who think an unregulated free market has a way of working out the solution for every problem. At least, the economic ones. But the second part of my post is not there for no reason; why is there this faith in the trickle down economy, where an unregulated free market has a way of (economically) benefiting everyone?
At least personally, I don't think the free market is a solution. I think it is the least bad system. Socialism, communism and fascism have been tried and have failed numerous times around the world : think India in the 60s, China in the 50s, Russia, Venuzuela now, Failed strongmen in the middle east and Africa... the list goes on. By contrast, countries such as the UK, Netherlands, US, Germany who have adopted (classical) liberal values of freedom and allow entrepreneurship, free(ish) trade and only mainly regulate just for safety, the environment and most important services (such as health insurance, NHS) are very well off. Even by modern standards, ignoring millenia where the richest were in today's poverty, even those living on the minimum wage in these countries have a high standard of living. Many have a car, almost all have a TV, their quality of nutrition, particularly in the Netherlands, is high and they generally have a better life than most people in most other countries around the world.

As for the trickle down theory, this is a misrepresentation of the free market used by (in the UK) the left.

I think you are throwing too many buzzwords into the same pot, mixing them up a bit. Free market, socialism, communism and fascism partially refer to entirely different political or economic concepts. They don't even exclude each other.

The trickle down theory is an economic concept with roots already in Adam Smith's works. Unfortunately, it became a highly politicized topic in the Reagan years as well as today with Trump. As with many economic theories, it has its merits, but should not be taken as the sole explanation for economic phenomena. It may be one mechanism among dozens of mechanisms which all work in the very same moment. The important question is always: is the mechanism that I am currently looking at really the right one to address to improve the situation?
As the real effect of trickle down economics is negligible (though still existing), it is seldomly a good idea to base far reaching policy measures on it.

Talking about poorer countries, I believe that the lack of historically grown institutions is the biggest obstacle for a successful development. Bureaucracy, though often condemned, is one of the most important aspects of todays advanced societies. E.g. the abilities to exert control over your territory, to regulate where it is necessary, and to measure precisely given the data accumulated by bureaucratic means allows a country to develop. Of course some of these abilities can be misused.
Controlling your territory can easily lead to controlling your citizens -> totalitatrian societies
Too much regulation can asphyxiate creativity -> stagnating societies

Nevertheless, you need all of them. The small government proponents often express their fear that a big government may lead to oppression. While that risk should not be downplayed, a small government is also much weaker against corporate interests and manipulation by the rich - both of which hamper economic and societal progress as well as, in the long run, the extent of available freedoms.
Whatever is written above: this is no financial advice.

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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by fightinfrenchman »

momuuu wrote:Ethical consumption does not exist in late stage capitalism.


I'm being completely serious here so please engage with me for a moment: what do you mean by "late stage capitalism?" I see people use this phrase a lot and I'm curious.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by momuuu »

fightinfrenchman wrote:
momuuu wrote:Ethical consumption does not exist in late stage capitalism.


I'm being completely serious here so please engage with me for a moment: what do you mean by "late stage capitalism?" I see people use this phrase a lot and I'm curious.

The inevitable point where monopolies have formed and competition between companies - the thing thats supposed to make prizes go down and benefit customers - ceases to exist, which is also the point where capitalism becomes a terrible system.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by fightinfrenchman »

Do you think that's where we're at now? Do you think that once inequality gets bad enough there will be a socialist revolution?
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by momuuu »

I think there are many areas in which capitalism has already become outdated and I wouldn't be surprised if I live to see the system overthrown or changed. That being said I have literally no expertise and threw that term around because its a meme term.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by oxaloacetate »

chris1089 wrote:IQ has very little to do with outcome. So called environmental factors, your upbringing and factors based on what your worldview (such as what you are working for; what your goal in life is) make a much larger influence.


You need to provide some citations to your claim that IQ has very little to do with outcome. Amongst scholars in psychology, who are the individuals occupied with research in the realm of IQ, there is a vast consensus (summary here) that IQ is the one of the most powerful predictors we know of. Especially used in combination with the 5 factor model.

I do not think you understand the concept of IQ very well. You namedrop a list of factors under the header environmental factors, but several of the factors you mention as counter points to IQ does in fact affect the IQ of an individual. IQ is best thought of as a genetic potential, which can be realized (at least partly) by environmental factors (although the science at this points towards genetics) being the most important factor).

chris1089 wrote:The belief that how people's genetics determined how well they would do was a large factor in driving eugenics in the 19th century.


The eugenics you refer to found place in the 20th century.
This statement is such a gross oversimplification. Do you mean that certain idividuals can't be genetically more suited at certain tasks than others (e.g. through a higher IQ or a higher than average testoterone levels etc.) because it leads to negative effects? Something may very well be true, despite being uncomfortable.

If anything it will be a huge upswing for us as a species when we learn to let the best person suited for a job perform it. Also, it is a preposterous notion that the intrinsic value of a human changes with their respective IQ, or genetical composition (which is part of the explanation for the actions you referred to).

chris1089 wrote:Do you mean third world countries, first world countries or newly industrialised countries? No country currently has a truly free market and most countries outside of first world countries are not even close.

I was just jancking Darwins chain. Sorry if this was unclear.

chris1089 wrote:By contrast, countries such as the UK, Netherlands, US, Germany who have adopted (classical) liberal values of freedom and allow entrepreneurship, free(ish) trade and only mainly regulate just for safety, the environment and most important services (such as health insurance, NHS) are very well off.

We need to decide whether we are interested in explaning the past (as is done above) or discuss what system would serve us the best in the future. Yes, at one point conservatives were proponents of protectionism and the liberal ideology were partly born out of this very dispute between Peel and Derby). Yet, today you will be hard pressed to find conservatives advocating against free trade. The majority certainly favour free trade, within a regulatory framework.

It is valid, historically, to make economical arguments why western europe is well off compared with the rest of the world. For instance did the invention of the limited company (the owners cannot be held liable for any debt beyond the stock capital) serve as the framework on which the companies responsible for extracting the vast riches in the east (both the british- and the dutch East India Company) was forged.

I guess my point is that debating conservatives vs liberals trying to explain the riches of the west is just a cul-de-sac.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by Amsel_ »

It's really odd how people devote such loyalty to trivial abstractions. Instead of thinking purely in terms of "this helps the free-market, I'll support it" and "this helps the working class and hurts the rich, I'll support it" we should think in terms of "what is best for my nation, my people?" At that point the debate between capitalism and communism becomes irrelevant, because you will naturally adopt whatever makes the most sense. People seem to have lost sight of the goal in favor of this arbitrary left versus right schema. All this accomplishes is giving politicians the ability to let companies profiteer under the guise of social welfare. Look at Greece, where an economic minister can talk about paying for new and old social programs while in the same breath talking about the need for austerity and "privatization" which is little more than surrendering the country's vital infrastructure and resources to Deutsche Bank. Look at Obamacare, where people thought the United States was moving towards universal health-care, but instead the biggest accomplishment of that bill was enriching health-care and insurance companies.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by gibson »

Obamacare's biggest accomplishment was helping millions of people who previously couldn't afford healthcare get healthcare. Now it also caused premiums for many people who weren't somewhere around the poverty line to go up, which is ultimately congresses( and largely the republicans) fault for not allowing the US to have a single payer system like every single other first world country. It's okay to spend over half a trillion on the military each year but god forbid we make sure each of our own citizens have access to healthcare.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by Amsel_ »

gibson wrote:Obamacare's biggest accomplishment was helping millions of people who previously couldn't afford healthcare get healthcare. Now it also caused premiums for many people who weren't somewhere around the poverty line to go up, which is ultimately congresses( and largely the republicans) fault for not allowing the US to have a single payer system like every single other first world country. It's okay to spend over half a trillion on the military each year but god forbid we make sure each of our own citizens have access to healthcare.

If I spent a hundred billion dollars to fill a cavity that would be horrendous. It wouldn't be justified just because I "made health-care accessible to another person." This is clearly an absurd example, but scaled down it applies pretty well to the affordable care act. Pound for pound, the biggest winners were private companies. That's not to say that some people didn't benefit; some cavities did get filled. What I am saying is that: If things had been done more diligently, far more people could have gotten health-care. Also, it's kind of funny that every single political discussion I get into on ESOC ends up containing "all my perceived problems are actually the result of another group oppressing me." That mindset is so quintessentially proletarian.

But, again, my main point is to transcend left versus right, capitalist versus socialist. It's odd that the only thing you chose to respond to was a topic where you could go right back into sports team partisanship, even though that could have been left out of my post with little loss.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by gibson »

If its clearly an absurd example why use it? Fact is it helped millions of people and the people who's premiums were raised were people who, generally speaking, could afford to pay a higher premium. Is this optimal, or even fair? No, not really. Could it have been much much better? Of course it could. But you saying that the biggest winner was insurance companies when over 10 million people today have their healthcare provided by Obamacare is ridiculous.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by momuuu »

Amsel_ wrote:It's really odd how people devote such loyalty to trivial abstractions. Instead of thinking purely in terms of "this helps the free-market, I'll support it" and "this helps the working class and hurts the rich, I'll support it" we should think in terms of "what is best for my nation, my people?" At that point the debate between capitalism and communism becomes irrelevant, because you will naturally adopt whatever makes the most sense. People seem to have lost sight of the goal in favor of this arbitrary left versus right schema. All this accomplishes is giving politicians the ability to let companies profiteer under the guise of social welfare. Look at Greece, where an economic minister can talk about paying for new and old social programs while in the same breath talking about the need for austerity and "privatization" which is little more than surrendering the country's vital infrastructure and resources to Deutsche Bank. Look at Obamacare, where people thought the United States was moving towards universal health-care, but instead the biggest accomplishment of that bill was enriching health-care and insurance companies.

I feel like this is slightly missing the point of left vs right. Its a discussion partially about either increasing wealth but distributing it poorly or taking a minor economic hit to then distribute it more evenly. People dont automatically 'do whats best' as what is best is highly subjective and thats generally where the divide between left and right is.

And then your examples are shit. Its basically usa (overall rich but with a 1% that owns 99% and having poor people die in their misery) vs EU (where wealth is distributed somewhat evenly through high taxes which inevitably hurt the economy a little). Thats the real example.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by Amsel_ »

momuuu wrote:
Amsel_ wrote:It's really odd how people devote such loyalty to trivial abstractions. Instead of thinking purely in terms of "this helps the free-market, I'll support it" and "this helps the working class and hurts the rich, I'll support it" we should think in terms of "what is best for my nation, my people?" At that point the debate between capitalism and communism becomes irrelevant, because you will naturally adopt whatever makes the most sense. People seem to have lost sight of the goal in favor of this arbitrary left versus right schema. All this accomplishes is giving politicians the ability to let companies profiteer under the guise of social welfare. Look at Greece, where an economic minister can talk about paying for new and old social programs while in the same breath talking about the need for austerity and "privatization" which is little more than surrendering the country's vital infrastructure and resources to Deutsche Bank. Look at Obamacare, where people thought the United States was moving towards universal health-care, but instead the biggest accomplishment of that bill was enriching health-care and insurance companies.

I feel like this is slightly missing the point of left vs right. Its a discussion partially about either increasing wealth but distributing it poorly or taking a minor economic hit to then distribute it more evenly. People dont automatically 'do whats best' as what is best is highly subjective and thats generally where the divide between left and right is.

And then your examples are shit. Its basically usa (overall rich but with a 1% that owns 99% and having poor people die in their misery) vs EU (where wealth is distributed somewhat evenly through high taxes which inevitably hurt the economy a little). Thats the real example.

Why force yourself into this dichotomy of either economic growth or economic equality? Both the free-market and equality seem like such trivialities. Things like economic growth and free-markets are always subservient to things like national security, it's why the police and army are funded. Equality is also a false notion, as humans are naturally unequal. In a natural, and healthy, society men of virtue have wealth, and immoral degenerates are poor. Instead of "distributing wealth equally" it would make more sense to provide things such as education and health-care, which are either vital or provide people the necessary minimum to live a successful life. Instead of arbitrarily giving money to everyone, we should ensure that money naturally flows into the hands of those who have done the most for our society.

The current systems are a complete failure. Both American and European. If we want to bring about a renaissance, a golden age, we need to think differently. We should abandon our loyalty to the "free-market" or "equality" in favor of loyalty to what is best for our nation. If we do that then we can see an end to poverty and the return of heroism and art. We can put an end this modern hyper-materialist society where men are only supposed to consume, do taxes, and die. That is a much nobler goal than acquiring wealth or promoting financial equality.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by fightinfrenchman »

Amsel_ wrote:
The current systems are a complete failure. Both American and European.


They're actually not
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

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Garja 2.0??
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by gibson »

amsel is delusional, if it wasn’t apparent enough already his last post made it abundantly clea
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

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Post by chris1089 »

gibson wrote:amsel is delusional, if it wasn’t apparent enough already his last post made it abundantly clea

Rather than using ad hominem, why don't you address his argument?
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by gibson »

chris1089 wrote:
gibson wrote:amsel is delusional, if it wasn’t apparent enough already his last post made it abundantly clea

Rather than using ad hominem, why don't you address his argument?
Cause someone who says this is beyond saving

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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by Goodspeed »

gibson wrote:amsel is delusional, if it wasn’t apparent enough already his last post made it abundantly clea
Not necessarily delusional. He just isn't saying anything. His post can be summarized in 1 sentence: Extremism is bad.

No shit.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by InsectPoison »

Since GS said this thread is more appropriate for my previous post i'll post it here.

The welfare state implemented in many modern countries is massively flawed. Too many people leeching off the system whilst hard working citizens are left out to dry. It favours people to just stay unemployed and get generous amounts of money whilst increasing unemployment rates in the country even though there are a plethora of jobs. To be honest I don't blame the people, if its better for me to stay at home and not work then why should I go out and find a job? I blame the system used, it should be changed to suite modern society because as it currently stands it is unsustainable.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by Amsel_ »

Goodspeed wrote:
gibson wrote:amsel is delusional, if it wasn’t apparent enough already his last post made it abundantly clea
Not necessarily delusional. He just isn't saying anything. His post can be summarized in 1 sentence: Extremism is bad.

No shit.

That's not really the message I was trying to get across. I wasn't talking about being a "moderate" or a "centrist" and condemning "extremism." Quite to the contrary, I think that if someone knows that they are right then they have a bit of an obligation to uphold the truth. In some cases it's good to be a radical, a fanatic. It is much better to fight evil and do good with extreme zeal than to be apathetic in the face of atrocities.

The main point I was trying to make is that people seem to give more loyalty and interest to "ideas" like the free-market or humanism than to humans themselves. What I'm saying isn't even all that radical. If you question a social-democrat enough, he will [generally] show willingness to utilize the free-market. He will be satisfied with a certain level of social security, rather than total class-warfare. Libertarians are even more prone to redefine "libertarian" to meet their personal beliefs. I've seen libertarians support anti-trust laws, tariffs, even media regulation. Most people, across the board, are willing to abandon their oh-so-sacred symbols when the need arises. What I'm saying is that we shouldn't even waste our time with these golden calves. We should unite around our nation rather than divide among our parties.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

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InsectPoison wrote:The welfare state implemented in many modern countries is massively flawed. Too many people leeching off the system whilst hard working citizens are left out to dry. It favours people to just stay unemployed and get generous amounts of money whilst increasing unemployment rates in the country even though there are a plethora of jobs. To be honest I don't blame the people, if its better for me to stay at home and not work then why should I go out and find a job? I blame the system used, it should be changed to suite modern society because as it currently stands it is unsustainable.




Let's bring in some stats then. I shall use the Netherlands as an example. NL has a working population of around 8.5 million. The National Bureau of Statistics (CBS) has calculated that about 4.5 million people older than 18 and younger than 75 don't have a job, or aren't eligible for one. This includes people that have retired early, or are supported by a spouse, as well as jobless people who are searching for a job. Anyway, of this 4.5 million, 600k are jobless and searching for a job. 3.8m aren't looking for a job or aren't capable of working.' In NL around 500k people receive a welfare check. That is for people to supplement their income, or to replace their income if they don't have one, to make sure they meet the mininum income threshhold. That's less than 10%.

About another 450k people are paid WW, which is a check that lasts for a maximum period of 2 years, and is paid to people who have recently become unemployed. You're only eligible for this check if you have a working history. And how much you get paid also depends on how much you have previously earned, and thus how much you have previously paid in taxes. You weren't talking about this kind of welfare, but I'm going to include it anyway. Together, we have about 1 million people that are paid welfare. That's about 12.5% of the current working population. Let's take a wild guess, and say that a whooping 6% of them are leeching (that is the entire 600k people who receive welfare, not WW). The welfare check is around 1000 euro a month. So it costs the taxpayer 7.5 billion a year. Let's add another 2.5 billion, just to roughly account for administrative costs. We're at 10 billion. (Note that the overall cost of the welfare state is much much higher, but most of the money goes to the sick and the elderly, not to the poor)

It's impossible to know the exact extent of the losses the taxpayer suffers due to taxfraud and tax evasion, but it's estimated to be between 10 and 20 billion a year.
This puts the losses in the same range as the losses Spain suffers, which is estimated around 27 billion (Dutch GDP is 1000B while Spain's GDP is 1.500B)

Difference? The first number is way overblown, and the money goes to generally poor people who don't have enough to live on. The second number is most likely understated, and most of that money goes to making the rich and super rich even richer.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by spanky4ever »

The super rich manages the most tax frawds. It is especially the super rich that derives taxes, also in Norway.
These massively disguise much more than everyone else, both in dollars and shares.
The researchers find that while most people - 99.9 percent of us - average 3 per cent of our treasure, the super riches - the richest 300-400 households, all of which have at least NOK 300 million in wealth - as much as around 30 percent.
But also those right under the super rich hide fortunes. Around 40 percent of the richest 0.1 percent actively use tax havens, and about 80 percent of the total hidden fortune belongs to them. The actual economic inequality in Norway is thus far greater than the officially measured. And, at a time when many countries struggle to finance their future pension obligations, including Norway, it may be more important than ever that all the nation's citizens participate in the society's spate law.

https://www.bi.no/forskning/business-re ... a-skatten/

Some ppl in this thread, say that the socially democratic idea is flawed, because there are to many freeloading on it.
In any welfare state, there will always be somebody who receive more than they should, but I would support Umeus post above, where he illustrates how this is not really the biggest issue.
The biggest one is how multinational corporations and the super rich, are not paying their fair share. This has been going on for a long time now, and I would suspect that it has grown in really fast pase over the last 2 decades. This is what is erroding the welfarestate from below.
If everybody paid their fair share, most ppl could pay less taxes, and there would be enough money to support the welfare state, and rebuild crumbling infrastructure, and the wave of elderly that needs pentions and healt services in the near future.

So, what I am trying to say here, is that its wrong to point to the poor, the sick, and the elderly, when you are looking for reasons why the welfare states stuggle.

So when the welfare state gets underfunded by this dynamics, the right wing, and the corporations use this as arguments - that the welfare state is flawed, and that we should have less government and more free markeds: talk about putting everything on its head :P and making short circuit to get to the oposit conslution than what is actually FACTS.
Btw; The crypto marked is just another place to hide your money, and avoid taxes_
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by Snuden »

iwillspankyou wrote:
The super rich manages the most tax frawds. It is especially the super rich that derives taxes, also in Norway.
These massively disguise much more than everyone else, both in dollars and shares.
The researchers find that while most people - 99.9 percent of us - average 3 per cent of our treasure, the super riches - the richest 300-400 households, all of which have at least NOK 300 million in wealth - as much as around 30 percent.
But also those right under the super rich hide fortunes. Around 40 percent of the richest 0.1 percent actively use tax havens, and about 80 percent of the total hidden fortune belongs to them. The actual economic inequality in Norway is thus far greater than the officially measured. And, at a time when many countries struggle to finance their future pension obligations, including Norway, it may be more important than ever that all the nation's citizens participate in the society's spate law.

https://www.bi.no/forskning/business-re ... a-skatten/

Some ppl in this thread, say that the socially democratic idea is flawed, because there are to many freeloading on it.
In any welfare state, there will always be somebody who receive more than they should, but I would support Umeus post above, where he illustrates how this is not really the biggest issue.
The biggest one is how multinational corporations and the super rich, are not paying their fair share. This has been going on for a long time now, and I would suspect that it has grown in really fast pase over the last 2 decades. This is what is erroding the welfarestate from below.
If everybody paid their fair share, most ppl could pay less taxes, and there would be enough money to support the welfare state, and rebuild crumbling infrastructure, and the wave of elderly that needs pentions and healt services in the near future.

So, what I am trying to say here, is that its wrong to point to the poor, the sick, and the elderly, when you are looking for reasons why the welfare states stuggle.

So when the welfare state gets underfunded by this dynamics, the right wing, and the corporations use this as arguments - that the welfare state is flawed, and that we should have less government and more free markeds: talk about putting everything on its head :P and making short circuit to get to the oposit conslution than what is actually FACTS.
Btw; The crypto marked is just another place to hide your money, and avoid taxes_

Congratulations on the consistency of your ignorance!
More and more exchanges have to comply with local regulations, one of them being KYC (Know Your Costumer)

This is done in order to combat terrorist funding, money laundering, tax evasion, etc...
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by momuuu »

InsectPoison wrote:Since GS said this thread is more appropriate for my previous post i'll post it here.

The welfare state implemented in many modern countries is massively flawed. Too many people leeching off the system whilst hard working citizens are left out to dry. It favours people to just stay unemployed and get generous amounts of money whilst increasing unemployment rates in the country even though there are a plethora of jobs. To be honest I don't blame the people, if its better for me to stay at home and not work then why should I go out and find a job? I blame the system used, it should be changed to suite modern society because as it currently stands it is unsustainable.

Its not a flaw though, its a tradeoff for not having people unable to buy food and support themselves. Its a country saying they ensure people can actually live a life.
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Re: God 2.0: The free market

Post by deleted_user0 »

Amsel_ wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:
gibson wrote:amsel is delusional, if it wasn’t apparent enough already his last post made it abundantly clea
Not necessarily delusional. He just isn't saying anything. His post can be summarized in 1 sentence: Extremism is bad.

No shit.

That's not really the message I was trying to get across. I wasn't talking about being a "moderate" or a "centrist" and condemning "extremism." Quite to the contrary, I think that if someone knows that they are right then they have a bit of an obligation to uphold the truth. In some cases it's good to be a radical, a fanatic. It is much better to fight evil and do good with extreme zeal than to be apathetic in the face of atrocities.

The main point I was trying to make is that people seem to give more loyalty and interest to "ideas" like the free-market or humanism than to humans themselves. What I'm saying isn't even all that radical. If you question a social-democrat enough, he will [generally] show willingness to utilize the free-market. He will be satisfied with a certain level of social security, rather than total class-warfare. Libertarians are even more prone to redefine "libertarian" to meet their personal beliefs. I've seen libertarians support anti-trust laws, tariffs, even media regulation. Most people, across the board, are willing to abandon their oh-so-sacred symbols when the need arises. What I'm saying is that we shouldn't even waste our time with these golden calves. We should unite around our nation rather than divide among our parties.


I made a post about this before, and you've never answered it. But Why do you believe that something like a party is an arbitrary and empty ideal, while a nation isn't and is something to strive for. Why do we still waste our effort on nations then? Why not unite around the earth.

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