Why do people in USA fear socialism so much?

[neptop]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

I am still not a socialist, not an American and don't think they are doing it better than socialists. I think they do it worse. The US has an awesome concept, because it's based on liberty/freedom, but sadly the people are being manipulated all the time. In a way the US are way more authoritarian, than China for example. However, the way this is enforced is completely different. Advertisement, religion, nationalism and the resulting society enforce a much stricter rule set than it would be possible doing top-down using a form of dictatorship or police state. If you change the society to enforce things on their own then you also prevent movements to change the status quo. If it's not just the government, than it's way harder to declare an enemy. In the US corporations are very strong, so power is spread. This may be the cause for the stability of the US. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying this is planned, it's more like the evolution of a society. Maybe it's even beneficial that this attitude causes hate by other and an enemy people like terrorism is good for nationalism. I guess there even is a demand for this. People in the US appear to need some kind of enemy and some strong men to face it. This enemy also justifies stuff like COINTELPRO, the PATRIOT act, even if they are meed public by the freedom of information act. It appealingly works pretty well and countries like China are trying to copy this strategy. Btw. in China you have one party, while in the US you have two, but in most areas they aren't too different from each other. It's the same in most Europe countries. They usually are like extreme centrists reflecting the intersection of everyone's thought and since people are not smart in every area, just in their own ones the outcome is pretty plain and often simply dumb. In China you have the big cities, that are a lot like the US, while the rural areas are more like the medieval and people don't care for them, because they don't know about it. In the US they are more like "everyone can achieve anything", so it's pretty much their fault. It's the problem if -some- (really, just some) libertarians and liberals, who think people would be equal and therefor it's everyone's business to care for themselves. I actually know that most libertarians and liberals think there should be institutions caring for people, but things shouldn't be enforced and it should be an institution, not the government. The thing is that such a society wouldn't really be too different from a socialist one. With that I mean that both systems would theoretically work well, if people would be informed or better inform themselves and actually care. I think most people mix up political or economical systems with society. A society defines how things are, not a small group of rulers. Of course, a small group may influence society, but pretty much everyone may do so, else we would still have kings ruling everywhere and not what people call democracies.

tl;dr: Forget socialism, capitalism, liberalism, anarchism, nationalism or whatever -isms. It just prevents people from working together and doing the right thing.

Want a proof this works? See Bitcoin. All kinds of people (whatever -ism they are) are here, because it's awesome and probably the right thing. It's the same for the internet and same for pretty much everything else. Just because things work, not because they are liberal or conservative.

[Coinbuck @ BTCLot]

In 2 words: Cold war

[ineededausername]

if people would be informed or better inform themselves and actually care. in an ideal world with no basis in reality.

Assuming different human natures, everything from anarchism to communism could potentially work.  Problem is, this just doesn't happen in real life

[bb113]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A few comments:

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

2) The common way of analyzing data used in this study (the p-value) is widely believed to be faulty by statisticians. It does not assess whether the data provides evidence supporting a theory, instead assumes that a null hypothesis is true and tells you the odds of getting results as extreme as were observed. Thinking that a small p-value means the evidence supports a theory is committing the fallacy of the transposed conditional. This is like thinking that just because every time it rains there are clouds, there is rain every time there are clouds. There are hundreds of papers on this dating back to the 1940s, and the statisticians are getting more and more pissed at the refusal of scientists to acknowledge this. The false positive rate amongst studies with p-values near .05 is estimated to be as high as 80%.  

3) The conclusion that "the reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something" appears to be pulled out of Dan Pink's Ass (correct me if I am wrong here...). This is the explanation offered by the authors of the paper:

Different tasks most likely have different optimal levels of arousal, and it is possible that the concentration tasks have a higher level of optimal arousal. Our choice of the levels of incentives in the three conditions, and particularly in the high-incentive condition could have produced arousal that exceeded even this optimal level – masking the relative advantage of arousal for these tasks.

In other words, most people perform worse under pressure. Note that the validity of this explanation for the data was not tested at all. However logical it sounds, it is completely hypothetical.

4) Interestingly, the authors also appear to be using these results to justify paying lower wages and salaries:

Given that incentives are generally costly for those providing them, raising contingent incentives beyond a certain point may be a losing proposition.

5) I really hate how science gets distilled for the NPR, TED talk audience even more than when it is totally dumbed down for the general public.

For anyone who cares...some free links below.
Here is the main paper Dan Pink is referencing:
http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/wp/wp2005/wp0511.pdf

Short article on p-values:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Odds%20are,%20it%27s%20wrong:%20science%20fails%20to%20face%20the%20shortcomings%20of...-a0223598536

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value

*Edit: I did find the rest of your post interesting though.

[Jay_Pal]

Well, simply put:
Socialism F**ed up Portugal, my country, by spending tax payers money in corruption, in construction work that never saw the day light, in in paying for people who got advantage of the system and lived without jobs (because they wanted to, not because they couldn't find one), not paying taxes or even the food they ate.

So simple as that.
Want to be social? Get a job first.

[anu]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A few comments:

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

So falsifying a theory is nothing more than gathering evidence against it? To my understanding, science proved Newton's theory wrong (even though it may still be useful). And proving something wrong is also a prove.

Now that some people do work without immediate material benefits does not prove anything about the general validity. Noone keeps doing dirty, dangerous and nasty work that is even considered dishonorable if they are not compensated for it. If cleaning streets 48 hours/week is not paying considerably better than not doing anything, nobody will go clean the streets.

[kokjo]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A few comments:

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

So falsifying a theory is nothing more than gathering evidence against it? To my understanding, science proved Newton's theory wrong (even though it may still be useful). And proving something wrong is also a prove.

Now that some people do work without immediate material benefits does not prove anything about the general validity. Noone keeps doing dirty, dangerous and nasty work that is even considered dishonorable if they are not compensated for it. If cleaning streets 48 hours/week is not paying considerably better than not doing anything, nobody will go clean the streets.

what is the payment, can you then ask? money? fun?
some people find it fun to clean streets, or just doing something.
doing dangerous work, can also be a motivator.

[bb113]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A few comments:

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

So falsifying a theory is nothing more than gathering evidence against it? To my understanding, science proved Newton's theory wrong (even though it may still be useful). And proving something wrong is also a prove.

Well, you can say it is very, very implausible given the new evidence. Since you never have perfect information, proving is like dividing by zero. In laymans terms you can say newtonian mechanics was proved inaccurate though.

[bb113]

I mean this isn't my area of expertise so maybe I am wrong. This is getting off topic but here is my reasoning:

Axioms of probability theory:
• 0 ≤ Pr(A) ≤ 1,
• Pr(A) = 0 when A is known to be false,
• Pr(A) = 1 when A is known to be true,
• Pr(A)+Pr( not A)=1 ,
• Pr(B)=Pr(B,A)+Pr(B,not A)

Bayes Rule:
• Pr (A|B)=[Pr (B|A) Pr (A)] / [Pr (B)]

A is your hypothesis
B is the evidence
" | "means "given that"
If the hypothesis is true given the evidence then Pr (A|B)=1. This is inversely proportional to Pr (B). So as Pr (B) approaches 0, Pr (A|B) approaches 1...

[kokjo]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A few comments:

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

So falsifying a theory is nothing more than gathering evidence against it? To my understanding, science proved Newton's theory wrong (even though it may still be useful). And proving something wrong is also a prove.

Well, you can say it is very, very implausible given the new evidence. Since you never have perfect information, proving is like dividing by zero. In laymans terms you can say newtonian mechanics was proved inaccurate though.

NO.
example:
hypothesis: all swans are white.

evidence: 1000 white swans.
conclusion: hypothesis is LIKELY to be true.

evidence: 1 black swan
conclusion: hypothesis is with 100% certainty false. (not 99.999999999999999999999% certainty but 100% certainty).

Please read Popper.

[neptop]

if people would be informed or better inform themselves and actually care. in an ideal world with no basis in reality.

Assuming different human natures, everything from anarchism to communism could potentially work.  Problem is, this just doesn't happen in real life

Yep, that's basically what I said (or at least meant).

But thanks for getting the quintessence out of it.

Although I am not willing to accept the "there is no basis" part.

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

Yeah, just sounded like a cool thing to say. Sorry for not being too accurate about it.

Critical Rationalism

The conclusion that "the reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something" appears to be pulled out of Dan Pink's Ass (correct me if I am wrong here...).

The evidence is that a people, who could sit on their lazy asses switching from sleeping to eating and having sex do stuff like creating art (writing, painting, playing music, programming) without an interest to make money, that people starting at early age compete pretty much everywhere, even and especially in games when they could as well sit/sleep/fuck, that people contribute to a lot of things without expecting anything in return. Maybe and this is even likely it's a social aspect - they want to impress. Also who doesn't love the feeling of accomplishing something, even if it's nor for something like money? Lots of evidences.

A huge thanks for the links.

Also thanks for your replies. Folks like you are why I love this community!

[bb113]

It's not a fear - it's a reality.  If people get less benefit from working, they will be less likely to work.  Less work means a less productive country and more freeloaders.

Scientifically proven to be wrong. The reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something. You can see this when people play video games and invest a lot of time and money into this. You can see this in open source projects, etc. Besides that work (or achieving something) is a good way to impress. That's also why people who don't work, even if they have enough money are more likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A few comments:

1) Science can never prove anything. Only provide evidence for or against a theory.

So falsifying a theory is nothing more than gathering evidence against it? To my understanding, science proved Newton's theory wrong (even though it may still be useful). And proving something wrong is also a prove.

Well, you can say it is very, very implausible given the new evidence. Since you never have perfect information, proving is like dividing by zero. In laymans terms you can say newtonian mechanics was proved inaccurate though.

NO.
example:
hypothesis: all swans are white.

evidence: 1000 white swans.
conclusion: hypothesis is LIKELY to be true.

evidence: 1 black swan
conclusion: hypothesis is with 100% certainty false. (not 99.999999999999999999999% certainty but 100% certainty).

Please read Popper.

I disagree. You are assuming you can have perfect info about the black swan existing. Perhaps there is something wrong with your measuring device (eyes + brain) or it was an illusion. It is very, very unlikely that people would mass hallucinate a black swan... but look at the success of religion.

[bb113]

The conclusion that "the reason is that people get bored by stuff and hate to be told to do something, while they love to achieve something" appears to be pulled out of Dan Pink's Ass (correct me if I am wrong here...).

The evidence is that a people, who could sit on their lazy asses switching from sleeping to eating and having sex do stuff like creating art (writing, painting, playing music, programming) without an interest to make money, that people starting at early age compete pretty much everywhere, even and especially in games when they could as well sit/sleep/fuck, that people contribute to a lot of things without expecting anything in return. Maybe and this is even likely it's a social aspect - they want to impress. Also who doesn't love the feeling of accomplishing something, even if it's nor for something like money? Lots of evidences.

That makes sense and all, but it was not tested in the study that Dan Pink referenced. More than that, an alternative theory was proposed by the researchers who did the work. That is why I say he "pulled it from his ass."

[kokjo]

NO.
example:
hypothesis: all swans are white.

evidence: 1000 white swans.
conclusion: hypothesis is LIKELY to be true.

evidence: 1 black swan
conclusion: hypothesis is with 100% certainty false. (not 99.999999999999999999999% certainty but 100% certainty).

Please read Popper.

I disagree. You are assuming you can have perfect info about the black swan existing. Perhaps there is something wrong with your measuring device (eyes + brain) or it was an illusion. It is very, very unlikely that people would mass hallucinate a black swan... but look at the success of religion.

you are getting philosophical:


and we are getting off topic.

[Hunterbunter]

Well, simply put:
Socialism F**ed up Portugal, my country, by spending tax payers money in corruption, in construction work that never saw the day light, in in paying for people who got advantage of the system and lived without jobs (because they wanted to, not because they couldn't find one), not paying taxes or even the food they ate.

So simple as that.
Want to be social? Get a job first.

So...did socialism mess up Portugul? or corruption? Would the same have happened if the corrupt weren't so corrupt and held accountable for their actions? Would it have also happened with the same people but in a capitalist state where they set the laws?

It sounds like an increase in responsibility is what you crave. Irresponsibility can exist in capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, minarchism, Santaism, you name it. Isms don't teach you personal responsibility, your peers do.

[FlipPro]

American's love socialism, they just hate admitting it lol.

[bb113]

Well, simply put:
Socialism F**ed up Portugal, my country, by spending tax payers money in corruption, in construction work that never saw the day light, in in paying for people who got advantage of the system and lived without jobs (because they wanted to, not because they couldn't find one), not paying taxes or even the food they ate.

So simple as that.
Want to be social? Get a job first.

So...did socialism mess up Portugul? or corruption? Would the same have happened if the corrupt weren't so corrupt and held accountable for their actions? Would it have also happened with the same people but in a capitalist state where they set the laws?

It sounds like an increase in responsibility is what you crave. Irresponsibility can exist in capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, minarchism, Santaism, you name it. Isms don't teach you personal responsibility, your peers do.

Did you see the chart I made? It was only some preliminary thing, but there are ways to get data and find out if they support your claims rather than just arguing about vague questions. This was figured out 300 years ago, get with the times. Both of you.

[Jay_Pal]

Well, simply put:
Socialism F**ed up Portugal, my country, by spending tax payers money in corruption, in construction work that never saw the day light, in in paying for people who got advantage of the system and lived without jobs (because they wanted to, not because they couldn't find one), not paying taxes or even the food they ate.

So simple as that.
Want to be social? Get a job first.

So...did socialism mess up Portugul? or corruption? Would the same have happened if the corrupt weren't so corrupt and held accountable for their actions? Would it have also happened with the same people but in a capitalist state where they set the laws?

It sounds like an increase in responsibility is what you crave. Irresponsibility can exist in capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, minarchism, Santaism, you name it. Isms don't teach you personal responsibility, your peers do.

Did you see the chart I made? It was only some preliminary thing, but there are ways to get data and find out if they support your claims rather than just arguing about vague questions. This was figured out 300 years ago, get with the times. Both of you.

You both must be joking, of course. Not my kind of humor sense, sorry.

[bb113]

What do you mean? You think every country isn't its own experiment?

[altuin]

Every country is an experiment, but it cannot be replicated, making it unscientific and not of significant worth to other countries. Look at the USSR and look at China. China is doing much better than the USSR even with a similar form of government.