E-Mail Suicide

[bowtieguy]

Originally Posted by bobc455

Although the facts in this email might be total BS, we do know for sure that the slippery slope towards socialism is irreversible and done one step at a time (though new or modified entitlement programs). Government dependency is a bad thing (unless you thought the USSR was a success).

-BC

EXACTLY! i'd say more of a "tongue in cheek" POV. moreso than BS anyway.

[Nrggeek]

I've spent many a night responding to FW:FW:RE emails. A quick Snopes/internet search really helps. Sometimes I feel like this guy:



Bill

[bobc455]

Originally Posted by maximilian

To hold up the USSR as a good implementation of any principals, let alone socialist ones... is misleading.

Who did that?

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Uh, you did?

Originally Posted by bobc455

we do know for sure that the slippery slope towards socialism is irreversible and done one step at a time (though new or modified entitlement programs). Government dependency is a bad thing (unless you thought the USSR was a success).

[zero_gravity]

it WAS a success until they spent all their money on a nuclear arms race! i'm not saying it was a good system of governing or that the people were treated fairly, but it WAS successful

[GasSavers_maximilian]

All depends how you define success, I guess. What are the standards for corrupt totalitarian oligarchies anyway? My personal experience in that area is limited.

[zero_gravity]

ummmm....stockpile lots of money and retain control over your victims err i mean citizens?

[GasSavers_BEEF]

keeping my political views to myself (I hate politics)

the russians were trying to set up a eutopia of sorts.

Eutopia
noun Obsolete. 1. a place in which human society, natural conditions, etc., are so ideally perfect that there is complete contentment. from dictionary.com

a eutopia as a theory is the perfect scenario. the problem is the "complete contentment" doesn't allow for people to better themselves or change their course of action. it is like you are a slave in your own life. it also doesn't allow for your children to better themselves and rise up from humble beginnings. thisdoesn't leave room for people that have ideas and initiative.


Entrepreneurship
–noun 1. a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
2. an employer of productive labor; contractor.

–verb (used with object) 3. to deal with or initiate as an entrepreneur.

–verb (used without object) 4. to act as an entrepreneur. also from dictionary.com

that is why russia failed. eutopia can exist but only for a short time because greed and the desire to better ones self will always win out.

greed being a negative driving force and bettering ones self being a positive driving force.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

They had a real problem with initial corruption as well. One difficulty revolutions in general have to overcome is that to win wars (especially a tough one), you need information security. To get that you have to concentrate secrets and therefore power in a relatively small number of hands. That setup is ripe for a power grab. Not that I buy into the theory particularly, but Marx always talked about a society peacefully transitioning naturally from capitalism to socialism to communism. Not going bloodily from an almost pre-industrial largely agrarian society with no history of democracy straight to communism. If anybody's on track to test Marx's path it's probably the Scandinavian countries. Of course such theoretical extremes are unrealistic and real world systems are a blend of socialism and capitalism. We did try laissez faire and it had some real problems, not to mention our recent flirtation with abandoning most regulation in areas of our financial markets. Coming up with more effective hybrids is something I think about a lot, since our existing systems evolved, rather than being planned from scratch.

I have been considering the future of the consumer economy. Forget about the timing of any of this, as it's difficult (if not impossible) to predict, but eventually, even if resource competition and pollution concerns don't force a scaling back of production of non-essentials, automation will supplant the ability of most workers to usefully contribute. Semi-skilled labor just won't be worth anything. Products will still consume resources so they'll still cost something, but most citizens won't have a way to earn any money with which to purchase them (at least not via any sort of factory job or one that indirectly relies on a factory job). A lot of service sector jobs will be automated as well, and adding more and more new ones that add little value to pick up the slack seems unrealistic. I have my own theories about what will happen when that comes to pass, but I'm curious what others may think.

[bobc455]

In a capitalist society, people have to compete to thrive- so they work hard and use their brains as best they can.

In a socialist (or controlled) society, there is no reward for working hard or make things better - your quality of life is predetermined. So nobody works hard or tries to do things better.

If you remove Standard of Living from the equation, then socialism is fine. Most Russian's only measurement for standard of living was how much vodka they could consume (the rest of their lifestyle was out of their own control). But if you want a roof that doesn't leak, toilet paper, and other things that we take for granted, then socialism should be avoided at all possible costs and capitalism should be encouraged to thrive.

Automation is a good thing, since machines can do work formerly done by humans, allowing humans to find some other work that will help our standard of living. Then when those jobs are also automated, humans can take the next step. Etc.

If technology ever reaches the point where machines can do ALL of our work for us, then I'll consider a socialist society as an option. But as long as (motivated) humans are required to do work, and robots cannot fulfill all of our material wants & needs, we'd better stick to capitalism.