8-Bit Philosophy: Is Capitalism Bad For You?

[Lightknight]

How exactly does this lecture talk about if capitalism is bad for you?

It seemed like nothing more than a crash course in Calvinism.

And yet, they got Calvinism entirely wrong. One of the most central components of Calvinism if not THE central component is that you have absolutely no merit in your salvation. They're (calvinists) very clear on that point. So this is a crash course on nothing.

 

[SNCommand]

you're not capitalist if you advocate nationalization of private property,

Venezuela running the oil industry in their country makes them non capitalists in my eye

by that definition there is no, and never been, a capitalist country in the world. Maybe Anarchistic Somalia....

About as much as there's no communist country in the world

Problem is there are no absolutes, you got very few instances of everything being privately owned or owned by the public, instead one has to decide how far up or down the scale a system has to go before it goes from being capitalistic to socialistic, most common border would probably be when the majority of the means of production is either private or public, majority private being capitalistic and majority public being socialistic

 

[Lightknight]

yada yada yada

The escapist has some dumb rules, but as far as i know, i'm not forced to quote what you want, I'm still free to choose.

I was merely pointing out that you were objectively wrong and not only failed to acknowledge it but replaced it with a quote from another post. Just seemed kind of cheap to me in a debate if we're actually trying to obtain knowledge. But seeing as you identify with the ol' Bolshevik then I'm not entirely sure we are both in this to obtain such enlightenment.

Collecting paycheck in communist society? You still don't know what communism is how can you discuss it?

A provision or barter system is not intrinsically different than a system of currency. It's merely that currency is representative of a vague standard unit of trade. Would you have preferred I said that they collect the things that they need in a way that would be ambiguous to most readers?

You do agree that there are no jobs for everyone right? And what do you think the tendency is with the arrival of automatization? And despite that, everyone has needs and capitalism fails to satisfy those.

Oh? And communism does satisfy those needs? Capitalism provides a huge variety of goods and services for the poorest amongst us. There's a reason why even our homeless survive harsh winters and starvation when nations pretending at communism fail.

What kind of golden standard are you even able to hold up here? Where's your success story? You've been blatantly wrong or entirely off base in nearly every point you've brought up against the quality of life in America and yet you've given me no standard of your own to dissect.

That's bullshit and you know it. Communism is a classless, stateless society where the means of production are common ownership, I don't give a fuck about what the majority thinks. (altought without class consciousness we can't get to communism :S )

In assumption you're correct, but since humans are a status conscious species. Once you eliminate classes, people will just make up new ones to make others feel inferior. It's our competitive nature that actually makes what we do work generally. Capitalism is basically the state we understand. Socialism which is the closest thing to Communism we've ever made on a national scale. Socialism generally devolves in to the elites of society, specifically those loyal to party in power, being the ones who control everything. China, North Korea, USSR, Nazi Germany, and many others are all good examples of this. But it's basically the same autocratic nature that ruled most of human history, but in the past the catalyst was the Church, and still is in some shira law based nations. The catalyst can also be money to buy your social power, or being a convincing speaker to win it.

Marx didn't even differentiate between socialism and communism, some say socialism is the lower state of communism. But one thing is for sure, Nazi's, North Korea, Cuba etc has nothing to do with socialism.

Sure they do. They're just really two faced about it and the people at the top are taking way too much advantage of the system to the point where the welfare being offered sucks a big one. It's incredibly poorly achieved socialism.

I'm actually not entirely sure that Nazi Germany's government and economic policy can be thrown out on its own merit. Hitler won Time's person of the year for a reason before the war broke in full. They did a really good job on that before they went all world-conquering genocide on everyone. In fact, had they not gone the genocide route I'm not sure they'd even be thought of as a villain so much as a world changer.

 

[Olrod]

How exactly does this lecture talk about if capitalism is bad for you?

It seemed like nothing more than a crash course in Calvinism.

And yet, they got Calvinism entirely wrong. One of the most central components of Calvinism if not THE central component is that you have absolutely no merit in your salvation. They're (calvinists) very clear on that point. So this is a crash course on nothing.

I would have given this video a D-, but with that tidbit of information, this video gets an F.

Not even 8-bit graphics can redeem something that is not only boring, but wrong too.

 

[Strazdas]

we can have a semantics debate on this point if you'd like. I'll warn you that the popular definition is the one that wins out and right now those countries are defined as communist nations by the common majority.

Communism was defined by Karl Marx is his works. That is the definition of Communism. What the popular opinion (USSR being communist, hahahaha) or dictionaries say is completely irrelevant as Marx's definition is the correct one and it does not matter how many people repeat incorrect one it does not make it true, just like a colledge professor calling Desktop a "Hard drive" does not make it so.

yet literally is currently being redefined to include the definition of "emphasis" or "hyperbole" rather than literally literal. So there we are.

There is also an incorrect definition of miracle, but thats the problem with dictionary makers more than anything.

About as much as there's no communist country in the world

Problem is there are no absolutes, you got very few instances of everything being privately owned or owned by the public, instead one has to decide how far up or down the scale a system has to go before it goes from being capitalistic to socialistic, most common border would probably be when the majority of the means of production is either private or public, majority private being capitalistic and majority public being socialistic

You know, i agree. there is a mix of ideologies in almost every case. however its important to see which one is dominant in the market, and capitalism is currently dominant in any country. some of that capitalism is market capitalism, some of it is planned economy capitalism, but if you want a socialism/communism infusion you should search for Sweden, not North Korea. North korea is simply authoritorian capitalism and despotism.

Being nationalized (owned by the government) is not the same thing as belonging to the public, because that would imply public has absolute control of the government, and as is the case especially in those nations this is false.

 

[Lightknight]

we can have a semantics debate on this point if you'd like. I'll warn you that the popular definition is the one that wins out and right now those countries are defined as communist nations by the common majority.

Communism was defined by Karl Marx is his works. That is the definition of Communism. What the popular opinion (USSR being communist, hahahaha) or dictionaries say is completely irrelevant as Marx's definition is the correct one and it does not matter how many people repeat incorrect one it does not make it true, just like a colledge professor calling Desktop a "Hard drive" does not make it so.

That's not true. Linguistic drift happens all the time. For example, agnosticism was created as a point of indecision between atheism and theism in which John Huxley proclaimed that he doesn't know which is right so he needs not change. Yet this term has been assigned to things like Agnostic Atheism and Agnostic Theism in direct contrast to the intention of the term.

yet literally is currently being redefined to include the definition of "emphasis" or "hyperbole" rather than literally literal. So there we are.

There is also an incorrect definition of miracle, but thats the problem with dictionary makers more than anything.

You have absolutely no say in what is the correct or incorrect definition of anything. I don't either. It's a social construct and as such is entirely vulnerable to the fancies and fluxuations of society. For better or worse, that is true regardless of yours or my opinions of what a word should be.

As for the definition of "miracle"? I assume you meant literal but I just wanted to bring up the fact that a herd of Unicorns is called a miracle.

 

[Lightknight]

yada yada yada

The escapist has some dumb rules, but as far as i know, i'm not forced to quote what you want, I'm still free to choose.

I was merely pointing out that you were objectively wrong and not only failed to acknowledge it but replaced it with a quote from another post. Just seemed kind of cheap to me in a debate if we're actually trying to obtain knowledge. But seeing as you identify with the ol' Bolshevik then I'm not entirely sure we are both in this to obtain such enlightenment.

I wasn't wrong, I simply stated that wasn't true for the 700 who die every year. The conversation about comparison between countries was with another user, I just stated that fact.

You cited the fact as though it meant something. I pointed out that this is far fewer deaths to cold than people who actually owned homes in other first world countries. It is a factually meaningful point to make. You said it like you were making a point and yet the point was shown to be incorrect by the mildest of delving into the facts of it. More than half a million homeless and only 700 die? That's astounding actually. Especially when 10,000 home owners in the UK still die and 31,000 total for some crazy reason.

Do you acknowledge that in the light of these facts that your point is actually a praise of the American quality of living? That even our homeless have better protection against the cold?

No point arguing about the rest since you are still calling horses to donkeys.

Then why don't you show me a country that is your golden standard of the clearly superior communist society? If it's so superior then I'm certain you'll have some fantastic examples for me. Ones that are long lasting with high quality of life that definitely haven't fallen prey to fundamental human flaws that make such a society nonviable.

 

[Strazdas]

That's not true. Linguistic drift happens all the time. For example, agnosticism was created as a point of indecision between atheism and theism in which John Huxley proclaimed that he doesn't know which is right so he needs not change. Yet this term has been assigned to things like Agnostic Atheism and Agnostic Theism in direct contrast to the intention of the term.

You have absolutely no say in what is the correct or incorrect definition of anything. I don't either. It's a social construct and as such is entirely vulnerable to the fancies and fluxuations of society. For better or worse, that is true regardless of yours or my opinions of what a word should be.

As for the definition of "miracle"? I assume you meant literal but I just wanted to bring up the fact that a herd of Unicorns is called a miracle.

Linguist drift sadly happens due to not enough effort being put in correcting people who use words incorrectly.

As far as your example of Agnosticism, its a state of not knowing. This does not mean there can be no adgostic atheism or agnositc theism. you can Not know but thing there is no god or not know but think there is one. the two are not mutually exclusive.

So then definitions are meaningless because everyone can just make up whatever they want. no wonder insulting people is now considered "Feminism".

 

[wfpdk]

wisecrack now on the escapist... run, dude. i like this show and i like this site, but the escapist is a web show meat grinder. although the comments are better here than on youtube, it's still not worth it.

 

[android927]

Communism was defined by Karl Marx is his works. That is the definition of Communism. What the popular opinion (USSR being communist, hahahaha) or dictionaries say is completely irrelevant as Marx's definition is the correct one and it does not matter how many people repeat incorrect one it does not make it true, just like a colledge professor calling Desktop a "Hard drive" does not make it so.

Not necessarily. Although Marx popularized the term, the concept has been around for thousands of years. Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Early_communism

 

[Strazdas]

Communism was defined by Karl Marx is his works. That is the definition of Communism. What the popular opinion (USSR being communist, hahahaha) or dictionaries say is completely irrelevant as Marx's definition is the correct one and it does not matter how many people repeat incorrect one it does not make it true, just like a colledge professor calling Desktop a "Hard drive" does not make it so.

Not necessarily. Although Marx popularized the term, the concept has been around for thousands of years. Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Early_communism

we were talking about definition and what it defines and not the concept itself though. Yes, the concept been around for a long time just like many other concepts existed before we defined them. Not sure where you see a disagreement here.