Communist Organization

[Kuciwalker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation

Most life-scientists today agree that sexual orientation is probably the result of complex interactions of environmental, cognitive/psychological and biological factors.[1] According to the American Psychiatric Association, however, "to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality. Similarly, no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse."[2]

...

Although a number of biological factors have been considered by scientists, such as prenatal hormones, chromosomes, polygenetic effects, brain structure effects and even viral influences, no clear scientific consensus exists today as to how biology influences sexual orientation.

btw, "epigenetics" was the cue that you didn't understand what you were talking about. There's no special reason why it's a better explanation for homosexuality than regular genetics.

[chequita guevara]

That really doesn't disprove what I wrote.

[Kuciwalker]

to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality

Without a mechanism, and without any clear inheritability, there's no good argument that homosexuality is "almost certainly a biologically determined behavior".

Stick to Marx and Lenin, che.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why on earth would you want to have any financial requirements for seeking public office?

You'll have to ask Congress on that one. They have financial requirements for those seeking public office, it's in the constitution.

Why isn't desire sufficient? Isn't that like restricting voting to those with property - a means to reduce the franchise in favor of those who already have the most?

Good question. The way the system is set up, no desire is not enough. I'd like to see more people have the ability to get involved, and reform the system so that it happens.

That's great, but it's not my bull**** claim. I do think that if you made the job a volunteer one, virtually nobody who was not independently wealthy would take the hit.

Ok, you have anything to back up that claim?

Public service is a job, like any other job.

No, it isn't. We ask people of all stripes to volunteer their time for all kinds of reasons. Why shouldn't an elected public official serve as a volunteer? He isn't hired. He doesn't have a contract. He cannot be fired until his term is up for performance difficulties. There is no competition, etc. The list goes on. There are many differences between an elected official and someone who works in a private business, so much so, that the question of market value for compensation can't really be answered.

How much is a congressman worth if we were to pay him market value? I don't think there is an answer to that question.

People should be - and if they are not independently wealthy, need to be - compensated for their labor.

It's irrelevant how much money they make. Volunteers aren't paid depending on whether they are rich or poor. All of them donate their time as they see fit.

Why the jobs of politicians should be any different is not something you have adequately explained.

Fair enough, I hope this is better. There are significant differences, the main one being lack of competition, and the fact that you cannot be fired for performance issues, as well as the fact that you aren't actually hired.

It's a full time job - in fact, it's far more than full time if you're doing it right. Even the Peace Corps gives you some compensation.

Now we are talking. I was waiting for someone to make the analogy with the Peace Corps.

What kind of compensation do they provide? Usually I would expect the expenses associated with the office to be covered, phone calls, staff, etc. as well as a stipend for expenses. In some cases it would mean a residence, (President, Governor), as has always been the case.

I'm not opposed to compensation that is necessary for the job to get done, I am opposed to a salary. There have been a number of politicians who have declined a salary because they have an issue with getting paid on the public purse, and I think all of them should follow that example.

It's not a false assumption - it's an objectively true statement. Anyone who is spending all their time and receiving no money for it is being progressively impoverished.

Debatable. Depends on how people see things. I sincerely doubt someone would think that was the case.

I'm worked as a full time, unpaid volunteer and I can tell you that it's ultimately not tenable unless you're loaded. I could do that for a few months, and then I had no money left.

I've done so as well, many, many times. It was a good way for me to get invaluable work experience, as well as to get contacts with the people who really do the work. I don't see that period of my life as 'impoverishing', it was building a necessary foundation on some of the work I do now. I learned lots of things that I would not have got the chance to learn had I not decided to volunteer.

I know for a fact, many would see 2 years in Congress as similar.

Working class people aren't motivated to do it because they don't have the resources necessary to run a successful campaign. It's not about motivation, it's about resources.

So how do we fix this? Wouldn't it make sense to lower the campaign costs?

To be honest, if you had asked me yesterday if anyone believed it would be a good idea to make public service volunteer only I would have thought the very idea ridiculous.

Carter runs a foundation that relies upon volunteer hours. Frankly I think he would see it differently then you do. I can understand your position if you felt you were an exploited intern why you wouldn't want others to suffer like that.

How in the world would we accomplish this by not paying anyone for their time? You're deliberately shooting yourself in the foot.

Well geez, how does work get done anyways?

Thompson? Are you kidding me? I thought we were talking about the "real possibility" of people of moderate means gaining office. In what way is the example of Thompson instructive here?

He was willing to use alternative means to reach out to people. The campaign was unsuccessful, but the methods were instructive.

You'll have to provide some evidence that making the position voluntary will deprive persons of moderate means from seeking the position in the first place.

[chequita guevara]

All right, let's say "more than likely" there is a biological cause. The high degree of incidence of separated homosexual identical twins argues very strongly for a biological cause.

[Kuciwalker]

From the same article:

Researchers have traditionally used twin studies to try to isolate genetic influences from environmental or other influences. Many early twin studies in this area selected from non-representative samples, and gave non-representative results.[5] Later twin studies have drawn from broader, more representative samples, and have thus given more representative results. A recent large-scale twin study, done by researchers at Yale University and Columbia University, concludes that "there is no evidence for strong genetic influence on same-sex preference in this sample."[5]

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Agathon
The idea that people are wired a certain way is usually a cover for some hegemonic ideology. We know that it isn't really true. Anyone who has read Stanley Milgram's books knows that human psychology is situational. An even better example is the plight of indigenous peoples who find it very hard to assimilate into modern capitalist society as it violates many of their identity forming norms. We would find it similarly difficult, were we transported to live in a mediaeval city. People have adapted to live in many forms of society. The idea that modern capitalist society is somehow an expression of a universal human nature is simply ridiculous. It's simply another form of despotism, which has been the characteristic form of human organization since people started living in large groups.

A future communist society would be much different from a primative society that doesn't use money. To take it to the extreme and say that a communist society could get by without using money is a mistake. A future communist society would be highly specialized and have very large cities. IMO, it's because a modern capitalist society shares these characteristics with the futuristic communist society that people will be partially the same.

We probably agree though, that human beings will be less religious, patriotic, materialistic, militaristic, prejudice etc...

As feminists have been pointing out for years, what counts as "human nature" in our society turns out to be very much to the advantage of a certain class of male citizens. It's not particularly difficult to see through this once you compare ordinary social conceptions of human nature with the scientific view of the human being. It very quickly becomes obvious that these beliefs have very little to do with reality. Rather they are a cultural lens through which people interpret reality. You can even look back to the beginnings of modern philosophy, in particular people like Locke, to see the modern "person" being born.

I agree. I just don't want to take it to the extreme and say that a futuristic society could get by without money and a system of accountability.

We are actually in a much better position than Marx was to see what a communist civilization would look like, since many of the required technologies have only recently come into being. For example, the USSR had a tough time organizing production since they simply didn't have access to enough information to do it.

They didn't have access to the information by choice. They didn't have anywhere near the accountants that the US had for example. This might have been due to a prejudice against them that existed within the party since prerevolutionary days. In a modern economy you need a modern accounting system where the numbers are regularly audited to ensure quality and eliminate corruption. You will always need that in a modern or futuristic society. That's what I meant by saying that people are wired a certain way. You need to assume that people will be corrupt or there will be trouble.

Markets are essentially a product of ignorance, since the price system is merely a decentralized information system that tells people what to produce. The increasing size of many corporations actually demonstrates the retreat of the market, since this occurs when it becomes more efficient to plan rather than to leave things up to the market. A corporation is in most cases an entity in which an internal market system has been suspended.

A good example of this is Wal Mart. The success of that company is in large part due to information technology. Wal Mart owns a gigantic private satellite network which enables extremely efficient stock management. This is the primary reason Wal Mart is able to force competitors out of business – it is simply a more efficient company than its competitors. If you had tried to create a company just like Wal Mart 200 years ago, it would have failed in the same way the Soviet Union did.

Capitalists don't actually trust the price system. That is why Wal Mart sought to increase its informational awareness, since it guessed correctly that this would make it more efficient than its competitors. It's also the rationale behind things like Air Miles and other rewards programs. Companies pay them for information about your buying habits so that they can plan their future production accordingly. Competition between corporations drives the further development of IT to this end. Capitalism is the chief force in the expansion of the part of the economy that is planned and not organized by the price system.

So it's a pretty reasonable guess that a communist civilization will rely heavily on IT networks to organize production and manage its costs against things like the environment.

Agreed, but they will also have to rely on money and prices.

Prices do a few things that are very important to a modern or future society. 1) It sends a signal to the producer about the demand for a product. It does so in a very efficient maner. 2) Prices exclude consumers. This is bad in a communist society because it is the mechanism that creates classes, but in a classless society it will be essential in the efficient distribution of goods. This is the only way consumers will be accountable for the resources that they consume.

The other feature of a communist civilization will be the replacement of human labour by machine labour. IIRC Marx predicted this in a crude form. So far, machine labour has merely served to free up human labour for other jobs that machines cannot do. However, with the probable development of AI, it is possible to see a future in which a large proportion of the human population simply cannot compete with machine labour (there are many people who simply cannot do anything other than simple jobs). Unfortunately, human beings tend to be produced in a way that doesn't reflect market needs very well. People have children for all sorts of reasons that are only peripherally connected with the job market. At some point, if things continue as they are, human beings will be in massive oversupply and we will simply have to rethink the economy, since it can no longer be predicated on the idea that most people survive by selling their labour. The only other option is to put all these surplus people to death, but it is simply not the case that most capitalists are so consumed by evil that they would even contemplate such a holocaust.

So there you go. My guess is that a communist civilization will be one in which networks make planning on a more radical scale feasible, and one in which most labour is conducted by machines.

I think it's way down the line that resources will be in abundance though. Society will still need to decide who will get what and how much. So claiming that there will be enough for everyone to consume as much as they like is unrealistic. Indeed, there are mentally ill people out there who will consume an unbelievable amount.

[Cyclotron]

Look, Ben, I'm not going to keep parsing through your statements. Your argument just doesn't make any sense. Public service is a full time job, not a part-time volunteering gig. None of the differences you highlight make an ounce of difference. The Peace Corps isn't really an adequate comparison; their compensation is minimal, but then again these are young people, usually without families to support, in good health and in need of a resume-filler. We pay people to work in government and we pay people to serve in the military. What is the market value of a soldier? I don't know, and it's irrelevant. If you want people to serve who aren't independently wealthy, you need to compensate them for the years of their life they are devoting. If people were Senator for a week, or a month, volunteering might work. If they are a Senator for 6 years, it obviously will not.

As far as the Carter Center goes, you misinterpreted my comments. I didn't mean "impoverished" in any way other that purely financial. I wasn't "exploited," it was my choice to go, and I would make the choice again. I enjoyed my experience there and I would recommend it to others, but the fact remains I wasn't making any money and still had to pay rent, food, etc. out of savings from previous jobs. It would have been impossible to do this if I had a family to support or house payments to make, or for any period longer than a few months. As for the Center's volunteers, they are largely old people with pensions and social security, with similarly low expenditures and no need to work for pay. The ones who are not senior citizens had other daytime jobs for money. Even the interns (young people, like I was) were sometimes given paid stipends under certain conditions.

I know it's bad form to just bow out of a conversation, but I'm done here. I'm not going to patiently explain to you how people need to get paid for their labor. If that's not obvious than there isn't much I can do. If a worthy person of modest means were considering a run for public office, do you think he or she would be more or less likely to do so if the position was without pay, if you assume that this person - like most in Congress - has a family to support and expenses to pay? The answer should be obvious, and if it isn't, then you're too obtuse for my argument to make any difference. I just don't have anything more to say on the issue.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
All right, let's say "more than likely" there is a biological cause. The high degree of incidence of separated homosexual identical twins argues very strongly for a biological cause.

For me the best argument is the prevalence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, including in species with very different social behaviors. Also in the animal kingdom there was an observed correlation between pollution and instances of homosexuality.

JM

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok
And who repairs/maintains the machines? Other machines? Is it turtles all the way down?

This question is not worthy of you Elok. There is no reason why an AI could not repair another AI.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Modern scientific studies are coming to the conclusion that rather than a tabula rasa,

I'm certainly not claiming that. But when Milgram could get ordinary people to deal apparent lethal shocks to their fellows, it seems reasonable to think that psychology is extremely situational.

[Ben Kenobi]

Public service is a full time job, not a part-time volunteering gig.

Yes, it's full time, but there are full time volunteer jobs, one of which is the peace-corps.

these are young people, usually without families to support, in good health and in need of a resume-filler.

Good point. Now my counter point is to look at all the presidents. How many young people are we looking at? Very few. Generally they are established, and have been for quite some time. The reasoning behind the age limits is so that they have people who are already well established before they even qualify for their jobs.

We pay people to work in government

Yes, those are civil servants, but they have very different functions. First, they are hired. They are not chosen by the people. They are not the representatives of the people. They can be fired if they are not performing, and most of all, there are private equivalents to many of their positions. If you want to attract civil servants, you look at their equivalent jobs.

My question is, is there an equivalent job for congressmen?

and we pay people to serve in the military. What is the market value of a soldier?

Good question. This is a much better argument then the civil service example. There isn't really a civilian coordinate to the job. Generally, it has been whatever is necessary to recruit the young men and women for the positions. They are again hired. They go through very rigorous training. If they succeed, they will eventually go on to take their positions in the military. If they don't perform they can be booted out. However, unlike most private jobs, there isn't competition, unless you count between different branches of the service.

If you want people to serve who aren't independently wealthy, you need to compensate them for the years of their life they are devoting.

What do you mean by compensation? A salary? Defray the expenses necessary to do the job? If the former I disagree. If the latter I agree.

I think you will still be able to get people of modest means into congress who want to serve, even if there is no salary associated with the job.

If people were Senator for a week, or a month, volunteering might work. If they are a Senator for 6 years, it obviously will not.

What if they were a Congressman for 2 and their expenses were covered?

Senators, again have been more likely to be older, wealthier and more well off then the congressmen, just because the terms are longer. Unless you change the term lengths, this will always be the case.

As for the Center's volunteers, they are largely old people with pensions and social security, with similarly low expenditures and no need to work for pay.

As compared to most of our presidents and senators? We don't have many young ones.

Even the interns (young people, like I was) were sometimes given paid stipends under certain conditions.

That to me is reasonable, and would be necessary to defray the costs of the job, office and staffers, etc.

If a worthy person of modest means were considering a run for public office, do you think he or she would be more or less likely to do so if the position was without pay, if you assume that this person - like most in Congress - has a family to support and expenses to pay?

Yes, I believe if the individual were sufficiently motivated.

Look, why don't we start a poll and see what the folks on Apolyton say?

[Barnabas]

The only communism possible is that of butt nuked tribes who live in the jungle.

Funnily, I think the jesuit missions in Paraguay are the closest think to a communist society that has ever existed.


How do you build an hidroelectric plant in a communist society? An ideal communist society I mean, I am not asking how those were built in the soviet union

How do you get all the materials? where do you get the engineers? how do you train normal people so that they can become engineers? How do you decide who gets that training? How do you decide if building it is good or not ? (it may flood much good farmland), I could continue asking questions forever

I am not completely against centrally planned economies, I think they can work quite well in countries with abundant natural resources and a relatively low population, but true communism seems impossible to me, like a religion