The Space Industry: An example of why governments fail and freedom prevails.

[rainingbitcoins]

Let me ask you something: Do you believe that your opinion is shared by a majority, or a minority of the population, or that if presented with the information that lead you to this conclusion, that a majority would share your opinion?

A majority of the population of what country? America? Hell no. But you have to keep in mind that we've been getting a steady diet of anti-leftist propaganda for 100+ years - since before there even was a socialist country to point fingers at. Hell, you should see the NY Times headlines from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution if you think propaganda now is outlandish. We even sent 14,000 soldiers over there to fight alongside the White Army. We decided before they even took power that we weren't going to give them a fair shake, and that just seems really wrong to me. It's my opinion that constant Western interventions, meddlings, and government overthrows were at least partially responsible for the paranoia and abuses of 20th century Communism. Not entirely, of course. There was still a lot of stupid crap like Lysenkoism in the USSR and the disasters of Mao's Great Leap Forward in China, but then we've certainly done stupid crap that killed a lot of people in the name of progress, too. One thing that gets forgotten is that both of those countries did make a lot of progress towards industrialization during those times (they were both mainly agrarian societies before that), though at an extremely high human cost, which is definitely not a good trade-off. Although if you look at it from the perspective of a country realizing that if it didn't make that progress, half the world was waiting to wipe them off of the map, you can sorta see why they did it.

Learning to put yourself in the shoes of others and try to see things from their perspective is an important excercise that's severely underappreciated in America, it seems.

I don't have a link handy, but I read a study once where Americans were told how things might work for them under socialism and how things might be organized, but the important thing was that they never used words like "communism" or "socialism". When the concepts were divorced entirely from those thoroughly demonized words, a startling number of people were actually in favor of it. Go figure.

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[myrkul]

I don't have a link handy, but I read a study once where Americans were told how things might work for them under socialism and how things might be organized, but the important thing was that they never used words like "communism" or "socialism". When the concepts were divorced entirely from those thoroughly demonized words, a startling number of people were actually in favor of it. Go figure.

I'll take this as option 3, "If presented, a majority would agree"

Well then, What are you worried about? If you but explain how your system is better, then certainly, most people will see the light, and preferentially choose the products produced by the co-op, even if it is a few bucks more (for reference, see how well organic products are doing, simply by adding that one word)

[rainingbitcoins]

I'll take this as option 3, "If presented, a majority would agree"

Well then, What are you worried about? If you but explain how your system is better, then certainly, most people will see the light, and preferentially choose the products produced by the co-op, even if it is a few bucks more (for reference, see how well organic products are doing, simply by adding that one word)

Like I said, it's not quite so simple. The propaganda, both subtle and overt, in the U.S. makes all of this a million times harder. We have millions of people who think an awful centrist president who seems to openly despise the left-leaning wing of his base is a bona-fide socialist. Imagine what they'd think when the news people called something socialist and were actually right about it! We have one far-right political party and one center-right political party. Trying to come back from that far behind is no simple task.

And you should know as well as I do that the best ideas aren't always the ones that win. All of the popular media is against the idea, because, well, they're big corporations. We see people from the hard right debating on TV all the time, but when was the last time you saw someone talking about the benefits of far leftist ideology on TV? I think I was like 20 before I heard the word "proletariat" for the first time. It seems like moderate liberals are the best we can hope for, even when eminently qualified guests like libertarian socialist author Noam Chomsky would be happy to appear, and do appear in alternative media like Democracy Now.

Being on the far right, I don't think you understand just how pervasive this is. And somehow this country is so far to the political right that, compared to their beliefs, people think we have a liberal media, which really just blows my mind.

It's not just a matter of convincing people of these things one time, because as soon as you plant that seed of doubt in their minds, they get to go home and watch hours and hours of Fox News and your words are forgotten. Learning about leftism requires reading lots of books, some of which can get pretty dry, and we all know how likely it is that modern Americans are gonna be down with that.

There are so many hugely significant stumbling blocks and barriers that I doubt anything that I'd like to see will ever happen in America, unless things get so incredibly bad that it starts to look like our only option. Even then, I think we'd see about a dozen revolutions from the far right before we ever see one from the far left. I dunno. I've had people call me a defeatist for expressing these sentiments, but I prefer to call myself a realist.

[Rassah]

You'll also be paying for all of their advertising, of course, for services that didn't used to need advertisement, but thanks to the totally efficient free market, you're now paying companies billions to watch their commercials.

Look at the private services you buy (insurances, products, etc). How many of those products have you seen advertisements for? Personally, I've almost never seen any, since I shop by researching prices and services myself. Likewise, when was the last time you saw an advertisement for Google, one of the biggest monopolies we have now?

And for duplicated efforts by competitors that erase the economies of scale enjoyed by government services.

Why would economies of scale not exist in the private market? Especially without government busting up monopolies?

“I think the entire government should be privatized. Chuck E. Cheese could run the parks; everything operated by tokens. Drop in a token, go on the swingset. Drop in another token, take a walk. Drop in a token, look at a duck.” - Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation

Both of my local state parks charge for parking at the entrance, with parking fees going to pay for park upkeep and maintenance. What's to stop a private organization from doing the same? (even if they have to raise the fees a bit to cover lack of government funding, and maybe add fines for littering)

[JohnDoeZ]

Cutting NASA's budget is a good move from the govt.

NASA is Big Fat and lack of movement, they can't even put :
   These BIO-PRODUCT up to Space! , sad, so sad

Viva Private company

[ascent]

I don't give a fuck. I seriously don't.

I'm still waiting for a thoughtfully composed argument against the Daly paper which you are claiming is 'bunk'. It seems to me that such a statement does not qualify as refutation of its theories.

Oh yeah, I forgot. You said that we'd all emigrate to space shortly, thus offloading the burden we place upon the Earth. Will that be in the next 100 years? Also, tell me, will that be Moon and Mars colonies only, or will that also include Asteroid Belt colonies and satellite living around Jupiter? And what time frame are you projecting for emigration into the Kuiper Belt and then the Oort Cloud? And then are we just going to rock hop our way across the Oort Cloud into the Alpha Centauri system, where, upon discovery of a verdant green planet (currently awaiting discovery by Debra Fischer's Alpha Centauri planet hunting team), we will then colonize it?

[myrkul]

Being on the far right, I don't think you understand just how pervasive this is. And somehow this country is so far to the political right that, compared to their beliefs, people think we have a liberal media, which really just blows my mind.

Tsk... Because you come from the far left, and look to the right, and see me, you assume I am coming from the far right. You are wrong. You also seem to have a very 1-dimensional view of the world. It's not a simple line.



If I showed up on this chart, I'd be top center. (I'm actually off the chart, but straight up from top-center)

Point of this is, It's not a simple left-right, and I've had Right-wingers call me leftist, too.

[ascent]

If I showed up on this chart, I'd be top center. (I'm actually off the chart, but straight up from top-center)

Incorrect. You've never lived in your system, nor do you have a working example of it in the world, so you cannot say if you'd really be there. Your belief in the system, your system, and your belief that you believe in your system is all fiction.

Point of this is, It's not a simple left-right, and I've had Right-wingers call me leftist, too.

Old news.

[rainingbitcoins]

Look at the private services you buy (insurances, products, etc). How many of those products have you seen advertisements for?

Geico lizard, Flo the Progressive insurance lady, hell I barely even watch commercial TV anymore, but there's two off the top of my head. You're also paying for ads in trade magazines and other places you probably never look.

Why would economies of scale not exist in the private market? Especially without government busting up monopolies?

They would, but you're still going to have duplicated efforts on major projects that end up just being a waste of money. Imagine sewer lines from five different companies running to every house in America. That's the kind of thing I'm referring to.

Both of my local state parks charge for parking at the entrance, with parking fees going to pay for park upkeep and maintenance. What's to stop a private organization from doing the same? (even if they have to raise the fees a bit to cover lack of government funding, and maybe add fines for littering)

State parks across the U.S. are starting to have to charge more and more fees and drop services at the same time due to extreme budget cuts. But really that was just a silly quote from a libertarian character on a TV show. You're supposed to chuckle at the idea of paying a token to look at a duck. Apparently you think that's a good idea, though?

Tsk... Because you come from the far left, and look to the right, and see me, you assume I am coming from the far right. You are wrong. You also seem to have a very 1-dimensional view of the world. It's not a simple line.

Yes, I know this. But there's no good way to describe this in an offhand way without posting a graph and all of that good stuff, and it seemed pointless. Obviously I realize there's a big difference between what you believe and what a Republican believes. You're welcome to call me just a leftist instead of a down-and-to-the-leftist if you want. Point is, libertarian ideas do get much more of a mainstream audience in corporate media because they aren't perceived as as much of a threat to those corporations. That's all. I do, of course, understand that this is more of a recent development and that as recently as the 1990s, those ideas were considered just as fringe as mine, but not anymore.

[myrkul]

Geico lizard, Flo the Progressive insurance lady, hell I barely even watch commercial TV anymore, but there's two off the top of my head. You're also paying for ads in trade magazines and other places you probably never look.

So you're saying that agencies, which advertise now, and offer affordable rates now, would be less affordable, when they had more services to offer, and thus more revenue, with the same advertising budget?

Why would economies of scale not exist in the private market? Especially without government busting up monopolies?

They would, but you're still going to have duplicated efforts on major projects that end up just being a waste of money. Imagine sewer lines from five different companies running to every house in America. That's the kind of thing I'm referring to.

Not necessarily. One company could install the lines, and then other companies compete to maintain them. Compost toilets or collection toilets for compost companies could become more popular. Imagine that... people competing for your shit.

Both of my local state parks charge for parking at the entrance, with parking fees going to pay for park upkeep and maintenance. What's to stop a private organization from doing the same? (even if they have to raise the fees a bit to cover lack of government funding, and maybe add fines for littering)

State parks across the U.S. are starting to have to charge more and more fees and drop services at the same time due to extreme budget cuts. But really that was just a silly quote from a libertarian character on a TV show. You're supposed to chuckle at the idea of paying a token to look at a duck. Apparently you think that's a good idea, though?

Well, that's an extreme example, most parks do not need a lot of maintenance, and so would not need to charge much per car (or parking pass).

Point is, libertarian ideas do get much more of a mainstream audience in corporate media because they aren't perceived as as much of a threat to those corporations. That's all. I do, of course, understand that this is more of a recent development and that as recently as the 1990s, those ideas were considered just as fringe as mine, but not anymore.

Well, no offense, but your ideas were tried. They didn't work... and catastrophically so.

[ascent]

Well, no offense, but your ideas were tried. They didn't work... and catastrophically so.

No offense, but nobody is actually considering your ideas seriously, and nobody is bothering to try them.

[rainingbitcoins]

So you're saying that agencies, which advertise now, and offer affordable rates now, would be less affordable, when they had more services to offer, and thus more revenue, with the same advertising budget?

I'm saying that you'd have even more industries producing even more pointless advertising (which is inherently coercive and dishonest, by the way) if everything was privatized. And we, the customers, end up paying for the privledge of being annoyed, coerced, and openly lied to if we want to use those products or services. I have no idea why he brought up insurance.

Well, no offense, but your ideas were tried. They didn't work... and catastrophically so.

There were many, many mitigating circumstances, a few of which I've already gone over in this thread, that seriously contributed to that. Even excluding all of those caveats, though, it isn't nearly as clear-cut as you make it seem:



http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/03/better-red-than-unfed-a-survey-of-post-communism/

[myrkul]

So you're saying that agencies, which advertise now, and offer affordable rates now, would be less affordable, when they had more services to offer, and thus more revenue, with the same advertising budget?

I'm saying that you'd have even more industries producing even more pointless advertising (which is inherently coercive and dishonest, by the way) if everything was privatized. And we, the customers, end up paying for the privledge of being annoyed, coerced, and openly lied to if we want to use those products or services. I have no idea why he brought up insurance.

Dishonest, I'll grant you. Ads are as close to lies as possible. Like taking to an Aes Sedai. But Coercive? Find me one coercive ad, just one ad that puts a gun to your head. He brought up insurance probably because Insurance agencies will probably end up being the brokers for most of those services - Defense agencies, Arbitration firms, etc. the partnership makes sense.

Well, no offense, but your ideas were tried. They didn't work... and catastrophically so.

There were many, many mitigating circumstances, a few of which I've already gone over in this thread, that seriously contributed to that. Even excluding all of those caveats, though, it isn't nearly as clear-cut as you make it seem:
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/03/better-red-than-unfed-a-survey-of-post-communism/

Well of course a communist country is going to be better than a failed state - especially when that communist state takes it's price signals from the Sears catalog. Give the economies of those countries a few years to get started again, and we'll be seeing much better living conditions.

[rainingbitcoins]

Dishonest, I'll grant you. Ads are as close to lies as possible. Like taking to an Aes Sedai. But Coercive? Find me one coercive ad, just one ad that puts a gun to your head.

Aw man, don't make me quote the dictionary on a message board. I hate when people do that.

coerce

–verb (used with object), -erced, -erc·ing. 
1. to compel by force, intimidation, or authority, especially without regard for individual desire or volition: They coerced him into signing the document.
2. to bring about through the use of force or other forms of compulsion; exact: to coerce obedience.
3. to dominate or control, especially by exploiting fear, anxiety, etc.: The state is based on successfully coercing the individual.

Commercials attempt to control your buying patterns, often by exploiting your fears and anxieties. They even go so far as to hire psychologists to learn how to better manipulate their potential customers. Hell, they even use child psychologists to manipulate our kids into buying their junk.

Give the economies of those countries a few years to get started again, and we'll be seeing much better living conditions.

I don't know when you think the Soviet Union fell, but those countries have already had a good 20+ years to get started.

[myrkul]

Commercials attempt to control your buying patterns, often by exploiting your fears and anxieties. They even go so far as to hire psychologists to learn how to better manipulate their potential customers. Hell, they even use child psychologists to manipulate our kids into buying their junk.

You make a good point. And perhaps the best example of your point is the 'Mayhem' line of commercials. Those things are designed to scare you. That's still a little shy of coercion in my book, especially when you compare it to the State's version (definitions 1 and 2).

I don't know when you think the Soviet Union fell, but those countries have already had a good 20+ years to get started.

Sorry. Didn't see the date on the link.
This is also a 'would you say' survey, not a scientific examination of the actual quality of living. I hate those sorts of surveys, because they're so easy to sway, just by carefully picking the people you ask.

[rainingbitcoins]

I hate those sorts of surveys, because they're so easy to sway, just by carefully picking the people you ask.

I'd agree with you if it were some no-name survey company, but Pew Research's methodology is generally agreed to be top-notch, and I don't really see what they'd have to gain by promoting Communism.

[myrkul]

I hate those sorts of surveys, because they're so easy to sway, just by carefully picking the people you ask.

I'd agree with you if it were some no-name survey company, but Pew Research's methodology is generally agreed to be top-notch, and I don't really see what they'd have to gain by promoting Communism.

You're probably right, but I'd have to do a little more investigating into the actual current economies, in particular Hungary v. Poland, to get the full picture.

[Xephan]

I don't have a link handy, but I read a study once where Americans were told how things might work for them under socialism and how things might be organized, but the important thing was that they never used words like "communism" or "socialism". When the concepts were divorced entirely from those thoroughly demonized words, a startling number of people were actually in favor of it. Go figure.

Not surprising, a form of socialism (if I didn't misunderstand the difference between that and communism) works pretty well (economically at least so far, although we're getting mighty pissy about inflation from certain policies) in my country but our Dear Leaders are careful to call ourselves a democratic republic

p.s. our form of socialism is closer to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his relationships" :x

[myrkul]

p.s. our form of socialism is closer to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his relationships" :x

Yes, in the end, that's how it always works out.

[Xephan]

p.s. our form of socialism is closer to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his relationships" :x

Yes, in the end, that's how it always works out.

Which is why sadly, socialism/communism will never work in the real world. It fails to take into account the inherent flaw in humanity.