The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Oxymoron]

Making society a better place, one pony at a time.

[Infinity Biscuit]

And yet the stereotypical brony is a libertarian.

[Ralin]

And male, and likely a misogynist. Sad, isn't it?

[Oxymoron]

*shrug* Well, it's not just a single show that'll change the makeup of our society. I was using FiM as an exmple of show that promote (most of the time...) cooperation, teamwork and "harmony" over individualism.

You'd need a deliberate effort applied to a wide spectrum of media, in the entirety of the public sphere, at the scale of several generations, to alter the common psyche in such a way that the new order of business you wish is seen as the natural order of things.

[Flagg]

Dude keep that shit in the pedophile thread.

[Oxymoron]

I love you too, Flagg.

[thejester]

man nobody ever mentions The Room is like %40 softcore porn

what's going on with wisneau's body

looks like he's been dipped in acid

also that scene at the end where he makes love to a sheet

[Veef]

what's going on with wisneau's body

He's European.

also that scene at the end where he makes love to a sheet

YOU'RE TEARING MY SHEETS APAAAAAAAAAAAAART!

[RogueIce]

Then enforce that. Because fuck these guys trying to run me off the road so they can get to work faster

That's already against the law. You just need to hire a few thousand more traffic cops to ensure it is strictly and widely enforced.

Also to nail your ass for going 1mph over the speedlimit for even a second.

[Bakustra]

alternatives to the market and to capitalism are totes workable. communistic relations are how most jobs and families work- things are shared out as necessary. that's also how, for example, the classical iroquois/haudenosaunee culture worked- goods were kept in communal storehouses and shared out as needed. the inka did something similar, but only with surplus goods beyond those used internally by the family groups that produced them. of course, both of these relied on hierarchies (somewhat more formal and exploitative for the inka than for the haudenosaunee), but there are plenty of examples of alternatives to capitalism/feudalism out there.

[Losonti Tokash]

look i'm wary of any system that compares itself to home/family life because of how much i hear "well i can balance my checkbook why can't the government hurr"

[Bakustra]

look i'm wary of any system that compares itself to home/family life because of how much i hear "well i can balance my checkbook why can't the government hurr"

you should be wary. wariness is a good thing. in any case, a genuine commie/anarchist society would require a lot more work than that because you'd need to manage stuff, work out how to counterbalance the oligarchic tendencies of representative democracy if you're not relying on complete devolution, which is a really stupid way to do things anyhow, coordinate industrial processes, establish planning targets and the like. you know, in a non-hierarchical way.

[Big Orangutan]

Capitalism sustains itself better and more balanced when it is more "inclusive" (creating a solid middle class and flexible social hierarchy, etc) and not rapaciously "extractive" (look at the millions of young people in the UK with student debts finding it a struggle to get a home and job), leading to the Capitalist system getting greedily hollowed out then imploding. The fury of the Arab Spring was partially fueled by the privatisation of state assets by Mubarak's cronies.

This online essay gives a good explanation on how the economy succeeds when it's more open to the populace or fails when it serves the elites at the expense of everything else (citing the slow decline of Venice through the Late Medieval era after the La Serrata as an example).

[Bakustra]

Capitalism sustains itself better and more balanced when it is more "inclusive" (creating a solid middle class and flexible social hierarchy, etc) and not rapaciously "extractive" (look at the millions of young people in the UK with student debts finding it a struggle to get a home and job), leading to the Capitalist system getting greedily hollowed out then imploding. The fury of the Arab Spring was partially fueled by the privatisation of state assets by Mubarak's cronies.

This online essay gives a good explanation on how the economy succeeds when it's more open to the populace or fails when it serves the elites at the expense of everything else (citing the slow decline of Venice through the Late Medieval era after the La Serrata as an example).

Actually, I think you'll find that the central contradiction of capitalism can't be resolved within the capitalist framework, meaning that capitalist ideology is inherently self-destructive. Which is usually acknowledged, even by people as blinkered as von Mises. In theory and in practice, capitalism can be made sustainable, but only when it is a smaller part of the overall economic system, as it was in China, or when it adopts non-competitive modes like Islamic mercantile capitalism did. Both of these systems are largely alien to the familiar form with joint-stock corporations and the like, though.

[Zod]

look i'm wary of any system that compares itself to home/family life because of how much i hear "well i can balance my checkbook why can't the government hurr"

The smarmy answer is that home and family life doesn't have squat on the sheer complexity massive corporations have to deal with. (Which is really what the government is when it comes down to it.)

[timmy]

CFMEU would be more badarse if it stood for Colonial Forces Marine Expeditionary Unit

They just help a rally in our driveway. All that was missing was a book burning.

[Darksi4190]

You'd need a deliberate effort applied to a wide spectrum of media, in the entirety of the public sphere, at the scale of several generations, to alter the common psyche in such a way that the new order of business you wish is seen as the natural order of things.

Every time I hear someone talking about engineering society like that, I can't help but imagine their desired end result as something like Los Angeles from Demolition man or the pussified TNG federation.

Talking about that kind of thing always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Aaron]

There's that. But things like the attitude shift on smoking is social engineering.

It can be bad, but it can be good.

[Losonti Tokash]

Talking about that kind of thing always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

as you unironically use the word "pussified"

[Flagg]

Are you a bushman of the Sahara?

[Infinity Biscuit]

Hey Baks IIRC I've heard people float the idea of adopting principles of Islamic banking or other such economic practices; are you familiar at all with those enough to if that's at all feasible or desirable upon surface examination?

[Bakustra]

Hey Baks IIRC I've heard people float the idea of adopting principles of Islamic banking or other such economic practices; are you familiar at all with those enough to if that's at all feasible or desirable upon surface examination?

A lot of them are basically circuitous ways to reconcile shari'a requirements with the demands of modern capitalism- some such ways are interesting and potentially could be valuable for replacing highly exploitative practices (making business loans be profit-sharing-focused rather than collateral-focused would be interesting), but they're not really a full alternative and probably couldn't really replace some of the more worrisome practices. Now, implementing old-school Islamic capitalism would be interesting in that they had the freest markets known (which led to anti-competitive and collaborative practices, since nothing backed up your agreements but the threat of individual violence), but they also had only tiny limits on risk. All ventures were unlimited-liability, and hedging your bets was practically unheard of. So it probably wouldn't be super-practical for the demands of industry.

Also, you know, still capitalism and exploitative, workers of the world unite etc.

[Stofsk]

look i'm wary of any system that compares itself to home/family life because of how much i hear "well i can balance my checkbook why can't the government hurr"

The smarmy answer is that home and family life doesn't have squat on the sheer complexity massive corporations have to deal with. (Which is really what the government is when it comes down to it.)

The somewhat more nuanced answer is spending equals income, and government operates on different principles than a business or even a small family do. People tend to assume that if a government is in deficit, it's a bad thing the same way how if their personal finances were in the red it's a bad thing for them. Which is not to say that a government deficit spending isn't something to be concerned about, but spending money that results in putting people in the workforce and earning money and thus, paying taxes on their wages is a large part in getting out of deficit. It's a little counterintuitive for most people to grasp.

[Zod]

The somewhat more nuanced answer is spending equals income, and government operates on different principles than a business or even a small family do. People tend to assume that if a government is in deficit, it's a bad thing the same way how if their personal finances were in the red it's a bad thing for them. Which is not to say that a government deficit spending isn't something to be concerned about, but spending money that results in putting people in the workforce and earning money and thus, paying taxes on their wages is a large part in getting out of deficit. It's a little counterintuitive for most people to grasp.

The government is essentially a service oriented business, except on a massive scale with a different hiring process. You still have a lot of moving parts to juggle, laws to make sure you're in compliance of and you need to have independent auditing to make sure everything goes into the slots and tabs they're supposed to be in. While somehow staying within a budget that half your customers want to make smaller and expect you to be able to keep up the same level of services.

[Straha]

Capitalism sustains itself better and more balanced when it is more "inclusive" (creating a solid middle class and flexible social hierarchy, etc) and not rapaciously "extractive" (look at the millions of young people in the UK with student debts finding it a struggle to get a home and job), leading to the Capitalist system getting greedily hollowed out then imploding. The fury of the Arab Spring was partially fueled by the privatisation of state assets by Mubarak's cronies.

This online essay gives a good explanation on how the economy succeeds when it's more open to the populace or fails when it serves the elites at the expense of everything else (citing the slow decline of Venice through the Late Medieval era after the La Serrata as an example).

Actually, I think you'll find that the central contradiction of capitalism can't be resolved within the capitalist framework, meaning that capitalist ideology is inherently self-destructive. Which is usually acknowledged, even by people as blinkered as von Mises.

My, admittedly limited, reconciliation with Capitalism actually comes through this. The one thing to credit capitalism with is that it is dynamic and changes, constantly. Through capitalism we can, and do, create new non-capitalist systems that offer us a chance to break down capitalism from the inside out and create newer, better, modes of production and exchange.

The theorists J. K. Gibson-Graham describe it best: "Thus even if one theorizes the finance industry itself as thoroughly capitalist, it can be represented as existing in a process of self-contradiction rather than self-replication - in the sense that it is a condition of existence of noncapitalist as well as capitalist activities and relations. A frothy spawn of economic diversity slips out from under the voluminous skirts of the (demon capitalist) finance industry."