Rage against the Machine - Communism Vs. Capitalism (again!)

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by The Templar
Advertising is always necessary in its informational capacity. I need to know what products are available and how well they function.

Maybe, but not at the levels we have now. Most of the products that are advertized are crap that falls out of use or taste just because consumers find that they don't get the utility they were told they would. And a lot of it is information that is completely useless like Coke commercials. Damn it, I know I can go to the store and get a Coke already!

Originally posted by The Templar
As for preference formation, do you really think those pop out of thin air? Humans are incredibly social creatures, and inherit preferences from their fellows using "messages" about norms and status.

No, but why should we play an active part in creating them.

[Velociryx]

What a thread! I love it.

And to answer both Templar and GePap at the same time.

The answer to the lack of "choice" is (quite obviously, actually) to change the equation.

You want mint chocolate chip ice cream and they don't have it? They "only" have chocolate? GREAT! Here's what you do:

1) bucket
2) ice
3) milk, cream, & sugar
4) rock salt
5) green food coloring
6) chocolate chips
7) Mint flavoring

mix, chill, serve.

What's more, since the store "only" has chocolate, if what you make is good, you can probably start selling it to OTHER folks who want something besides chocolate, either right out of your house, or on the shelf beside the chocolate!

Shocking, I know....innit great?

Same basic premise for the OS. If you want it, and it ain't there, go make it, Comrade.

-=Vel=-

[Kidlicious]

I didn't know GePap was a communist. I thought his was just arguing about your logic.

[GePap]

Vel:

:sigh:

You really do get stuck on the measely details while missing the big picture, don't you?

Lets say Vel want's to go into space: according to him, all he has to do is to,well, build his own spacecraft and heck, if other people want to go into space, he'll make money on it too!

My comment address the very notion of "choice" (and don't confuse my argument with templars: we have different notions on choice as his post shows). You ALWAYS have a choice. Think of the oft stated "with a gun to my head". You can always refuse to do what someone who has a gun to your head tells you to do. The thing we leave olut is that choices (any choice) has consequences. The size of the consequence varies with the size of the choice, but there is lways one. If you do somehting becuase someone has a gun to your head is becuase you assume that if you do not do as told, you will be killed or badly injured, so the choice you made was "life and heath vs. pride and other values (depending on what was asked of you)". It was a choice. Maybe not the type of choice you like to make, BUT a CHOICE nonetheless. Notice how the "gun" arument also requires other assumptions, like knowing what a gun is. if you put a gun to the head of someone who never knew what it was or could do, they would not feel any sort of life or death choice upon them, since they don;t know death is a possibility in that moment. As always, what you know (and how you know it) determines what you envision the choice to be in the first place.

[Velociryx]

ain't no problem with my logic, Kid, unless you'd like to argue that the above is physically impossible to do. If so, you wanna come over and have some ice cream? I got a mixer just downstairs, not packed yet!

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I didn't know GePap was a communist. I thought his was just arguing about your logic.

I am argung against his logic. I am not actually a communist sicne I question Marxist though in various places. BUt I am also neither a capitalist, and as I have said, I find it absdr that people confuse man's creations with something natural.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Velociryx
What's more, since the store "only" has chocolate, if what you make is good, you can probably start selling it to OTHER folks who want something besides chocolate, either right out of your house, or on the shelf beside the chocolate!

Shocking, I know....innit great?

Same basic premise for the OS. If you want it, and it ain't there, go make it, Comrade.

-=Vel=-

What allows for a technologically advanced society such as ours is division of labor. That is, different people get different skill sets and do different jobs.

Now, if everyone decides to invest the 5 to 8 years to study computer science in order to build their own idiosyncratic OS (and I guess the software to go with it as well - I better just contract out my spellchecker ), the world is going to have real problems.

Nor do I want to spend the time to master ice cream production. Ben and Jerry make enough flavors and do it well (and there is some company in CA that makes a nice Green Tea ice cream as an alternative).

My point is, is that if capitalism's big claim to superiority is choice, it fails even on that ground due to the constraints of the division of labor in society. Choice is necessarily limited by the resources that are thrown at a problem. Windows is good enough for what I do, runs all the software I need, and gives my far less headaches than Linux. I'll stick to what I do and let the comp sci guys do what they do.

But why should we lead the division of labor to chance in an uncontrolled market? If we know what we want - or can at least reach some consensus on second order values - and we know what experts can do the first order work of setting methods to maximising values - why are we fooling around?

[Velociryx]

Not at all, GePap....I'm well aware of the macro-level picture. We just have a different method of looking at it, is all.

One side says that society should drive the engine, and dictate to the individual (macro-level). The other side says that the devil is in the details, and starts at the individual level, working up to the macro level from there.

One way makes the individual subservient to the society, and the other way celebrates the power OF the individual, relying on the sum total of individual actions to drive and shape society itself.


I know where I'd rather live, if your "choice" is different, there are options available, right now. Need a suitcase?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Temp: I'm not saying that capitalism is perfect. But you must concede that it's a far better race horse than ANY attempt at communism has been do date, yes?

If you believe in your system, start on a small scale. Start a company run along communist lines.

PROVE it works.

Prove it is scalable.

Then we'll have something to talk about?

Til then, you're comparing a system that works (albiet imperfectly) to a system that looks good on paper, but has failed every practical applications test.

True?

-=Vel=-

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Kidicious

Maybe, but not at the levels we have now. Most of the products that are advertized are crap that falls out of use or taste just because consumers find that they don't get the utility they were told they would. And a lot of it is information that is completely useless like Coke commercials. Damn it, I know I can go to the store and get a Coke already!

I said some form of advertising is necessary via an informational role. Not that the level of advertising the US engages in is good. Quite the contrary, our system does engage mostly in creating a craving for useless crap like coke. Oh yes, please make me crave something that will rot my teeth and leech calcium from my bones. I think coke was some sort of evil invention of the dental industry!

No, but why should we play an active part in creating them.

We can't help but do so. Again, should prference formation be left to advertisers out to maximize profits by selling useless ****?

[Ecthy]

Lonestar, your signature is wrong. First subversion, then infiltration, then indoctrination, then the conspiracy...

[Velociryx]

GePap: Yes! By all means though, let's change the equation, since the first example didn't work out so well. Let's raise the bar to something REALLY hard, like space travel.

If Vel wanted to go to space, he'd prolly hook up with these people:

http://www.space-frontier.org/

Next?

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Not at all, GePap....I'm well aware of the macro-level picture. We just have a different method of looking at it, is all.
One side says that society should drive the engine, and dictate to the individual (macro-level). The other side says that the devil is in the details, and starts at the individual level, working up to the macro level from there.
One way makes the individual subservient to the society, and the other way celebrates the power OF the individual, relying on the sum total of individual actions to drive and shape society itself.
-=Vel=-

The indvidual is always subservient to the society Vel. He always has and alwasy shall be, since man is a social being. You say the capitalism empowers the individual: bollocks. Capitalism uses the invidual for and end. In capitalism,choices have two qualifications: rational or not, efficient or not. That is it.

You say that capitalism starts at the micro level: wrong. The foundations of capitalism were laid from above. The most important part of a working capitalist system is a system of laws that create a certain level of accountability and stability to allow the market to work. The States creates such a system, and the state is no single individual. If things had been left to the individual we would not have the system we have today. And they would not have because they would have been working from different assumtions.

What you continually ignore (or fail to see, or fail to want to see) is that the choices you make are informed by the system you ive in. Live in a different system, and the same person gives you different choices, because the information they are using is different. The capitalist system as it exists was set up from above because that is the only way it could be set up. A small bunch gets a new idea and thinks it is best for al, so they start working on it and trying to change the whole of society from above. MOst human beings are inherently risk averse and prefer to work within what they know instead of trying to blaze new trails: society left on its own will rarely be revolutionary. Only in extreme circumstances is it, and in most circuamstances a smaller group will get the ball rolling and then force everyone else to decide which of the courses they would rather back.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
GePap: Yes! By all means though, let's change the equation, since the first example didn't work out so well. Let's raise the bar to something REALLY hard, like space travel.

If Vel wanted to go to space, he'd prolly hook up with these people:

http://www.space-frontier.org/

Next?

-=Vel=-

Oh yes, they have the working capital to build a space craft: oh, and lets not forget what you need to get something into space: right now, a rocket, which can always become a missile...and we all know how much sattes love individual groups having missiles, no?

When that bunch gets a man into space by purely pirvate means (without any public assistance) then come to me with tha answer Vel. Until then it is no answer. (I am sure plenty of epople though of setting up private Moon resorts back in 1970..see how much they did with it!)

[Velociryx]

INDIVIDUALS shape society where I live. Individuals define society where I live. Not the other way around.

Not sure where you're living, and if that is untrue where you are, I'm sorry.

What's IS true is that the communist mantra would reverse it. Society defines the individual. No choice. No freedoms. The party tells you what is right and proper, what to buy, what to think. How to live (and often, where to live).

Fail to do as you're told like a good little communist and you disappear.

(again, at least, communism as has been applied to date).

Is this innacurate? All a big lie, right? I'm not really free, I just think I am? I had to get government approval to move out of my townhouse and into the house I just bought.

I can't just pack my sh*t and move somewhere else, quit my job and go cross-country for 18 months if I want to? Nahhh. Course not.

-=Vel=-