Democratic Libertarian Party HQ

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Archaic
In the time when Adam Smith wrote his book, the world was *more* globalized than it is today.

Where did you get that idea? Could you elaborate your opinion? IMO the first time you can speak of a globalized world is after the wave of European imperialism in the last quarter of the 19th century. And now it is definitely not less globalized.

Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. Already did this with Drouge. I'm not saying that human nature can't change, but it is NOT a change that can happen overnight as Pan seems to think. It is a gradual change over many, many generations. And even then, you're not changing instinct, only the "base morals".

Could you please elaborate how you see this as an Ad Hominem? I was simply pointing to what appears to me as conflicting statements.

And you are contradicting yourself again by the way. As you say, you can only change base morals, not instinct. And base morals are not part of human nature... Unless of course when you have moral absolutistic beliefs instead of the moral relativism I consider most likely to be true. To quote myself from my last large unanswered post:

I'm amazed. Do you really believe that? Christianity did not change human nature. It created a culture which was succesful in determining people's actions due to the processes of socialization and internalization. So no Archaic, you can't make people über-rational or more aware of the consequences of their actions on a global and longterm level. At the most you might teach them the value to care more about themselves or society as a whole, but that does not mean they will know what's best for themselves or the entire society out of themselves... You have to educate them on the subject, for example the environment. But as said before, they cannot be educated on every subject => laws are needed.

If I follow your logic, a child which is born in a christian society which exists say 1500 years ago will have inborn christian base morals. So if it would moved directly to some faraway tribe in Papua New Guinea, it would still develop christian morals instead of the world view of that tribe. Correct?

I consider it more likely that human nature can't be changed except through genetic manipulation in some decades/centuries. You can however seriously affect the morals of a child through its upbringing. Theoretically, if society, its culture and its economy, changed completely over one generation, this would also mean the morals of new generations could be completely different of those of the previous generations.

So in my view both you and Pandemoniak are partially correct, partially wrong.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Archaic
Refer to the Wong Rebuttal.

I did, and I don't agree with it. I have no idea who Wong is, but I did not see a convincing argument as to why Marxism is against human nature.

Originally posted by Archaic
Burden of proof is on you. Prove how they are equal. I'm not required to demonstrate something that patently obvious.

No, it isn't obvious, and the burden of proof is on no-one. We disagree, there is no starting point, you cannot say who has the burden of proof. We both have the burden of probability. I was meaning that I haven't heard an argument as to why we are not equal yet?

Originally posted by Archaic
Do you deny that you're engaging in red herring nitpicks?

Yes I do. Please answer my questions, instead of countering them with your own question. That was a valid question. Pande stated that: "consumer choice is not as important as the force of the company in the applied free market" and you tried to ridicule it,w ithout giving an answer. Do you deny that it is?

Originally posted by Archaic
*HOW* does Schumacher highlight Marxism being possible and practical in the modern world? Considering that Marxism *is* a derivitive of Socialism practised on a national scale. No one is denying that isn't applicable on family or collective scales afterall.
And the new theory isn't based on Marxism. It's just based on plain socialism. Hell, it isn't even a new theory to begin with.

Refer to 'Small is Beautiful'. Marxism with many small economies, creating the whole economy. That's the basic idea, although he adds much about intermediate technology and environmental issues. [/QUOTE]

[GeneralTacticus]

Well, in breaking up posts, both you and GT seem to argue against every single point, but miss the point of the whole. I have before said that something is wrong, but means fo example, only to be told that that thing is wrong. Because the person answering took what I said as my belief, and argued it was wrong, rather than look at the whole post in which I had already said it was wrong, and used it to make a point.

Can you come up with a single example of this?

Well, the consumer choice is not as important as the force of the company in the applied free market. Its rather a "bail market" than a free market.

If you're referring to the US system of corporate wealfare that bails out corporations which are having problems, this is a result of political corruption, not of capitalism.

I prefer not to comment, I would get rude.

Go ahead and comment, we're waiting for your reply. Do you honestly believe that every person is entitled to equal treatment, etc, regardless of what they actually do or have done? Would you consider someone whose main occuptation is stamping documents for a few hours a day equal to someone who works 12 hours a day trying to develop a cure for cancer?

[quote]Maybe Marxism does work best on a small scale, but that doesn't make it irrelevant. /quote]

It does if what we're discussing is how to manage our (very large-scale) economy.

About the Indians, now, I indeed dont know any tribe that didnt have an economy precisely "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Would they have actually given more of their resources to a blind paraplegic than to one of their hunters? That would sound like 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' to me.

No, it isn't obvious, and the burden of proof is on no-one. We disagree, there is no starting point, you cannot say who has the burden of proof. We both have the burden of probability. I was meaning that I haven't heard an argument as to why we are not equal yet?

We do have a starting point - it patently obvious that not everyone is equal in intelligence, physical strength, talents in various fields, etc. Now can you come up with a convincing argument why everybody should be treated the same, despite this?

Yes I do. Please answer my questions, instead of countering them with your own question. That was a valid question. Pande stated that: "consumer choice is not as important as the force of the company in the applied free market" and you tried to ridicule it,w ithout giving an answer. Do you deny that it is?

Depends where the 'applied free market' is that you're talking about. If it's in the US, then the force of the company IS more powerful there, because US corporations bought the US government a long time ago. They can thus change the rules governing the market to suit themselves, rather than their consumers.

Refer to 'Small is Beautiful'. Marxism with many small economies, creating the whole economy.

And how exactly does he intend to deal with things like mass production, which work best in a large economy? Or with small economies that have only one main product, like mining regions?

[GeneralTacticus]

*BUMP*

[GeneralTacticus]

I have ann issue which I think needs to be discussed by the party: are we in favour of constructing boreholes, and if so, how many and where? I've posted up a poll on whether or not two boreholes should be built in Centralis here.

[Archaic]

I'm personally in favour of both. Minerals and Energy are always welcome. Especially in Centralis, where we've already got Tree Farms under construction to soothe the cries of the Eco-terrorists. They should provide a healthy jump to our production, income and research.

Hmmmm.....we really do need some Psych spending in place so we can fund some decent Workplace Health & Safety for these environments though. And we can't just *force* people to work in these dangerous places. Remote controlled robots would be best.

[GeneralTacticus]

Under our current Planned economy though, I doubt it will get through. We have little enough income as it is, without diminishing it further.

[Archaic]

Unfortunatly true. Still, we can live in hope.

[Archaic]

Is hope paying off, or have the socialist blok failed to make their votes yet?

[DeathByTheSword]

*ignore*

[Archaic]

Hmmmm?

[GeneralTacticus]

Is hope paying off, or have the socialist blok failed to make their votes yet?

Are you referring to the borehole poll, or something else I was unaware of?

[Archaic]

The Borehole Poll. Amazingly enough, there seems to be rather little resistance.

[Archaic]

Considering the lack of people going for positions, I guess there's no real need to set our preferences for this election, once again.

*Sighs*

I don't suppose you'd like to try going for something Tass?

[GeneralTacticus]

Maybe you'd consider going for a governorship? I know I've been thinking about asking you to take over government of Centralis once my three terms are up, to make sure the policies I'm currently implementing continue without interference from STEP or the CCCP.