implementor's recent activity
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Comment on What are you passionate about? in ~talk
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Comment on What are you passionate about? in ~talk
implementor Link ParentI don't find anything unethical about people being unequal - that's a fundamental of human existence. My concern is that the most people have the best lives possible, and that their individual...I don't find anything unethical about people being unequal - that's a fundamental of human existence. My concern is that the most people have the best lives possible, and that their individual rights are respected and protected. Capitalist governments generally do both. I'm not concerned in the slightest that there are huge inequalities in what people have - if even the poorer people have a much better standard of living than they do in other systems. And this has been proven to be the case over and over again in Capitalist countries vs. Communist countries - the poorest in capitalist countries have a far better standard of living than the average person in a communist country. As for individual rights, while capitalist countries in many ways can do better at protecting individual rights, they are vastly better at protecting the individual rights of their citizens, communist countries, as a rule, are the greatest human rights abusers in history.
Capitalist countries don't have completely free and unregulated markets, they have plenty of regulations designed to protect the individual rights of their citizens, and protect them from force and fraud. Do they do so perfectly? No, because we're all human beings and perfect systems only exist in fantasy. But do they do a far better job than communist countries, that have a record of mass murder of those citizens that disagree with the state? Yes, vastly.
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Comment on What are you passionate about? in ~talk
implementor Link ParentCapitalist governments haven't killed hundreds of millions of their own citizens outside of war, no, and communist governments have done so in the last 100 years on a scale that has never been...Capitalist governments haven't killed hundreds of millions of their own citizens outside of war, no, and communist governments have done so in the last 100 years on a scale that has never been seen before. And the reason that communism doesn't work is simple, it's the calculation problem (it's the same reason any command economy performs poorly). Capitalism crowdsources it's economic signals, and capitalist systems boil down to "people can freely make agreements to trade amongst themselves", communism, in practice, puts economic decisions in the hands of bureaucrats that have generally done a poor job of making them (and, like any other command economy, is heavily subject to corruption).
It comes down to people are going to be people. You can't have a utopia and humans being humans at the same time. Capitalism does have problems, but it provides the most benefit to the most people, as opposed to communism, which generally just makes everyone poor and miserable, except for those bureaucrats that run things.
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Comment on What are you passionate about? in ~talk
implementor Link ParentI really don't think that we're ever going to really reach a post-scarcety economy, and I don't think that human nature allows for communism to work. Utopian models of pretty much everything don't...I really don't think that we're ever going to really reach a post-scarcety economy, and I don't think that human nature allows for communism to work. Utopian models of pretty much everything don't work, and we've had 100 years of people trying various types of communism and socialism, with virtually all failing and, in the process, killing at least 100 million people. Capitalism isn't utopian, but utopian societies can't exist, and capitalism gives us the most benefit for the greatest number of people.
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Comment on What's everyone's favorite movie? in ~movies
implementor LinkBig Trouble in Little China. Greatest movie of all time.Big Trouble in Little China. Greatest movie of all time.
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Comment on Anyone like Pokemon Go? in ~games
implementor LinkIf you live in an urban or suburban area it can be a lot of fun :-)If you live in an urban or suburban area it can be a lot of fun :-)
I was very clear about capitalism requiring a respect for and protection of individual rights to be a worthwhile and workable system - the same protections for individual rights that make slavery illegal. And that included equal protection under the law. But that is the problem with communism - there is no respect for, nor protection of, individual rights. The "collective" is the only thing that is respected or protected, and if you disagree with the collective, you can and will be murdered for expressing yourself. This is a common feature of communist governments (USSR, China, North Korea, etc.).
I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm not a fan of any government that doesn't protect the rights of the individual, and doesn't equally protect all individual's rights. But that is not the same as trying to make everyone's outcomes equal. That only results in misery, suffering, and wholesale murder, hence the (minimum) of 100 million of their own citizens killed under Communist governments. It's the 39th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre, where a Communist government murdered at least 10,000 of it's own citizens - and that same government is doing it's best to wipe any information about, or memory of, that event out. Because expressing opinions that differ from the Party is generally a death sentence under Communism.