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 dæl wrote:

The Alaska state constitution claims common heritage rights of ownership of oil and other minerals for the people of the state as a whole.

Thats great but it doesn't mean gak. The government of Alaska owns the rights anc an do what it wants with it. Thats your definition of communism now?

I wish you guys would get specific. You've now claimed pretty much all governments as communistic, but then say there can't be governments, which can't exist.

 Frazzled wrote:

I wish you guys would get specific. You've now claimed pretty much all governments as communistic, but then say there can't be governments, which can't exist.

How so? I have claimed that there are some instances of communistic schemes within capitalist societies, not that Alaska is communist for paying it citizens for the privilege of extracting their oil.

 dæl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

I wish you guys would get specific. You've now claimed pretty much all governments as communistic, but then say there can't be governments, which can't exist.

How so? I have claimed that there are some instances of communistic schemes within capitalist societies, not that Alaska is communist for paying it citizens for the privilege of extracting their oil.

No you've pretty much denied any communist schemes where there is a govenrment involved. That rules out your Alaska example.
If it were a communist regime why would they even have money?

 Frazzled wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

I wish you guys would get specific. You've now claimed pretty much all governments as communistic, but then say there can't be governments, which can't exist.

How so? I have claimed that there are some instances of communistic schemes within capitalist societies, not that Alaska is communist for paying it citizens for the privilege of extracting their oil.

No you've pretty much denied any communist schemes where there is a govenrment involved. That rules out your Alaska example.
If it were a communist regime why would they even have money?

Not at all, I denied any communist countries that have a government. Communistic schemes within capitalist countries are quite different from communist countries.

 dæl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

I wish you guys would get specific. You've now claimed pretty much all governments as communistic, but then say there can't be governments, which can't exist.

How so? I have claimed that there are some instances of communistic schemes within capitalist societies, not that Alaska is communist for paying it citizens for the privilege of extracting their oil.

No you've pretty much denied any communist schemes where there is a govenrment involved. That rules out your Alaska example.
If it were a communist regime why would they even have money?

Not at all, I denied any communist countries that have a government. Communistic schemes within capitalist countries are quite different from communist countries.

Not using your criteria that everything must be in order. Sorry.

Besides thats not communist. Thats not "each according to his need."

You can't call "no true scotsmen" at a group of americans just because they're all human though. There's some similarities, but it's just absurd to call them the same thing.

Yes, children have a strong sense of possession. However, they also have a sense of fairness, and giving someone in America more than someone in Africa for the same amount of work isn't exactly fair, whereas communism is.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

PhantomViper wrote:

 dæl wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:From here: Possession and morality in early development

What's interesting is how that works with societies which had no concept of ownership, such as the native americans.

Citation needed.

Well, for example any convents in existance have no (or extremely little) concept of ownership, yet have perfectly pleasant lives (if you enjoy all that religious stuff). In fact, wasn't much of the bible about giving things away and, arguably, having as un-capitalist a life as possible?

 Frazzled wrote:

Not using your criteria that everything must be in order. Sorry.

Besides thats not communist. Thats not "each according to his need."

What criteria? Where did I set out criteria for communist schemes in capitalist countries? My criteria for communist countries is that there is collective ownership of all resources and the means of production, no country has met that criteria in modern times.

Oil dividends in Alaska are equal, everyone gets the same share.
Also communistic schemes such as bike ownership in Amsterdam are each according to his need. When you need one, you use it.

The human race has a history of always wanting things, but the human race also has a history of there not being enough things for everyone to have all the things they want. As soon as we get to a stage where if you want something then you can almost certainly afford it, people will suddenly become far less worried about possession simply because there's no threat, and you can't show off all your possessions to those poorer than yourself.

There's a saying "you have to be rich to be a socialist," and I'm not sure it's always true but there is a hint of truth behind it. As soon as you don't need absolutely everything you can get your hands on just to survive, there's suddenly far less incentive to own things, and people will become far happier in sharing.

 dæl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Not using your criteria that everything must be in order. Sorry.

Besides thats not communist. Thats not "each according to his need."

What criteria? Where did I set out criteria for communist schemes in capitalist countries? My criteria for communist countries is that there is collective ownership of all resources and the means of production, no country has met that criteria in modern times.

Oil dividends in Alaska are equal, everyone gets the same share.
Also communistic schemes such as bike ownership in Amsterdam are each according to his need. When you need one, you use it.

- The oil is owned by the state. Thats exactly the same as California, Mexico, and the USSR. There's not difference.
-bikes are owned by the state.
-USSR all natural resources were owned by the state.
-North Korea all natural resources are owned by the state.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 p_gray99 wrote:
The human race has a history of always wanting things, but the human race also has a history of there not being enough things for everyone to have all the things they want. As soon as we get to a stage where if you want something then you can almost certainly afford it, people will suddenly become far less worried about possession simply because there's no threat, and you can't show off all your possessions to those poorer than yourself.

As soon as we reach that stage? Any form of government works at that point.

 Frazzled wrote:

 p_gray99 wrote:
The human race has a history of always wanting things, but the human race also has a history of there not being enough things for everyone to have all the things they want. As soon as we get to a stage where if you want something then you can almost certainly afford it, people will suddenly become far less worried about possession simply because there's no threat, and you can't show off all your possessions to those poorer than yourself.

As soon as we reach that stage? Any form of government works at that point.

Yes, but as soon as we get to that point it's no longer about what works and more about what's fairest, which is communism. Which is pretty much what I've been trying to say all along...
It's possible it could work before then, but no-one can predict what will happen in the future any degree of accuracy.

 Frazzled wrote:

- The oil is owned by the state. Thats exactly the same as California, Mexico, and the USSR. There's not difference.
-bikes are owned by the state.
-USSR all natural resources were owned by the state.
-North Korea all natural resources are owned by the state.

There is a massive difference, as I have said numerous times now, between a communist society and a communistic scheme within another society. Those schemes are not communist, but are communist-like in their intent and implementation. Do you honestly not see the difference between a small scheme and an entire society?

The problem with communism isn't so much to do with human nature but more to do with creating a system that lacks competition that is essential for innovation, you know what everyone should just read sebster's posts in this thread as it should have been over by then.

[quote=p_gray99 516173 5511978 554edd6776f4a6d13996b142ff8f4cd9.jpg

Yes, children have a strong sense of possession. However, they also have a sense of fairness.

Thats called narcissism (aka spoiled brats). Yes you see it a lot.. I blame the Eisenhower administration.

 Cheesecat wrote:
The problem with communism isn't so much to do with human nature but more to do with creating a system that lacks competition that is essential for innovation, you know what everyone should just read sebster's posts in this thread as it should have been over by then.

The assumption that competition is better for innovation than cooperation is not something I agree with.

“Cooperation—not competition—underpins innovation. To spur creativity, and to encourage people to come up with original ideas, you need to use the lure of the carrot, not fear of the stick. Cooperation is the architect of creativity throughout evolution, from cells to multicellular creatures to anthills to villages to cities. Without cooperation there can be neither construction nor complexity in evolution”

From here

I find it very difficult to believe that the Manhattan Project was something born of "cooperation"... Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mighty big sticks that drove plenty of innovation throughout the war.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I find it very difficult to believe that the Manhattan Project was something born of "cooperation"... Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mighty big sticks that drove plenty of innovation throughout the war.

Besides if you look at these socialist countries you can see that there economies were in bad shape and were releasing sub par products and I have to imagine it has something to do with a a lack of a competitive market that capitalism allows.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I find it very difficult to believe that the Manhattan Project was something born of "cooperation"... Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mighty big sticks that drove plenty of innovation throughout the war.

I find it very difficult to believe that building weapons of mass destruction should be a yardstick for human achievement.

 dæl wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I find it very difficult to believe that the Manhattan Project was something born of "cooperation"... Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mighty big sticks that drove plenty of innovation throughout the war.

I find it very difficult to believe that building weapons of mass destruction should be a yardstick for human achievement.

However, if you look at all the technology that stemmed from that one single project?? We can draw direct, or near direct links from that project to damn near everything NASA has done, most of the personal electronics industry, alternate forms of power to coal (hydro-electric was already being done, but nuclear is the safer option all things considered)


Yes, the initial results (the two bombs) are really nothing to be proud of (even though the large bulk of all inventions started in a military context... let's face it, we're bloody brilliant at finding new ways to off each other in large numbers), but the follow on effects, inventions and technologies that would simply not exist if it werent for that project.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I find it very difficult to believe that the Manhattan Project was something born of "cooperation"... Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mighty big sticks that drove plenty of innovation throughout the war.

I find it very difficult to believe that building weapons of mass destruction should be a yardstick for human achievement.

However, if you look at all the technology that stemmed from that one single project?? We can draw direct, or near direct links from that project to damn near everything NASA has done, most of the personal electronics industry, alternate forms of power to coal (hydro-electric was already being done, but nuclear is the safer option all things considered)


Yes, the initial results (the two bombs) are really nothing to be proud of (even though the large bulk of all inventions started in a military context... let's face it, we're bloody brilliant at finding new ways to off each other in large numbers), but the follow on effects, inventions and technologies that would simply not exist if it werent for that project.

I agree with everything said here except for "the follow on effects, inventions and technologies that would simply not exist if it werent for that project." Which is something we would never know but it's probably not true, we would have got them later, but we would have got them. Also there was cooperation involved in the Manhattan project with the involvement of the UK and Canada, but of course it was motivated by the arms race of the second world war.

The LHC is a pretty good model for how cooperation can work when it comes to scientific achievement, and hopefully that project will provide us with similar follow on effects.

 dæl wrote:


I agree with everything said here except for "the follow on effects, inventions and technologies that would simply not exist if it werent for that project." Which is something we would never know but it's probably not true, we would have got them later, but we would have got them. Also there was cooperation involved in the Manhattan project with the involvement of the UK and Canada, but of course it was motivated by the arms race of the second world war.

The LHC is a pretty good model for how cooperation can work when it comes to scientific achievement, and hopefully that project will provide us with similar follow on effects.

I prefer to see the LHC as an american failure, in that the SSC was scrapped, and would have harnessed greater energy than that of the LHC.

as for the nuclear tech, I still can't get my mind around why in seven bloody hells nobody has gotten around to actually getting a functional thorium reactor up, and actually testing that sucker out. If that bastard works, then, I can't understand why we don't simply build some of them, and take a huge leap into solving our energy problems. This is something that makes sense in any given political system, and I can't quite see why this hasn't been done yet.

 dæl wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
The problem with communism isn't so much to do with human nature but more to do with creating a system that lacks competition that is essential for innovation, you know what everyone should just read sebster's posts in this thread as it should have been over by then.

The assumption that competition is better for innovation than cooperation is not something I agree with.

I don't mean to offend you but I find it pretty hard to believe that you are studying politics at a university level and have these kinds of views and opinions.

It is pretty well documented that the vast majority of humanities radical advancements have come during times of war as a result of the direct competition involved especially during the modern age, from the previously mentioned advancements in nuclear energy, space exploration, aviation, communications and even modern computers, medicine and countless others!

I believe that there is no better indication of the fundamental flaws in the communist theories, that its proponents have to basically ignore or twist history, economy, politics and human psychology to arrive at an hypothetical future scenario where communism might have a chance to work... maybe.

 poda_t wrote:
as for the nuclear tech, I still can't get my mind around why in seven bloody hells nobody has gotten around to actually getting a functional thorium reactor up, and actually testing that sucker out. If that bastard works, then, I can't understand why we don't simply build some of them, and take a huge leap into solving our energy problems. This is something that makes sense in any given political system, and I can't quite see why this hasn't been done yet.

My own personal opinion is that there are certain political minds that wish to scare everyone into believing that nuclear power is the most evil, horrible way in which to produce energy, so they have blindly, or knowingly placed extreme rules and regulations on it thereby making any further progress very difficult to downright impossible.

poda_t wrote:

 p_gray99 wrote:
Yes, children have a strong sense of possession. However, they also have a sense of fairness.

If they are socialized to have that sense of fairness. It is not inherent to them. I know kids that have developed socipathic and abusive behaviours because parents were retards and absolutely refused to correct the childs behavior, but only have chats with them at the end of the day. The kids are absolute nut-cases, and woe to the world, because this new parenting model is catching on...... the next generation WILL have a sense of fairness, true, but one that is skewed and slanted where anyone does anything that doesn't align to their interests is "unfair".

So you're saying that the idea of fairness is something that we teach other humans? I'm not going to say that's incorrect. It could easily be.

However, the idea of fairness and the idea of possession are extremely similar. They are both seen as being one of the major points of, well, being human. We can see the effects of both at a very young age. If we have to teach people one of them, and it works extremely well (staying with them for life, causing them to teach it to their children for life etc.) then surely we could just as easily tech children to ignore the other, and they would lose it for life and they would teach their children to lose it for life...
Either way, communism's possible.

PhantomViper wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
The problem with communism isn't so much to do with human nature but more to do with creating a system that lacks competition that is essential for innovation, you know what everyone should just read sebster's posts in this thread as it should have been over by then.

The assumption that competition is better for innovation than cooperation is not something I agree with.

I don't mean to offend you but I find it pretty hard to believe that you are studying politics at a university level and have these kinds of views and opinions.

It is pretty well documented that the vast majority of humanity's radical advancements have come during times of war as a result of the direct competition involved especially during the modern age, from the previously mentioned advancements in nuclear energy, space exploration, aviation, communications and even modern computers, medicine and countless others!

I believe that there is no better indication of the fundamental flaws in the communist theories, that its proponents have to basically ignore or twist history, economy, politics and human psychology to arrive at an hypothetical future scenario where communism might have a chance to work... maybe.

Yes, many technological advancements have been made during times of war when, you'd think, there was a large amount of competition between countries. And so there was.

However, when's the last time (outside of war) that all the companies and researchers in a single country, never mind an alliance of countries, have come together to try and develop something? In the second world war, german scientists developed rockets from absolutely nothing, yes. But Hitler himself had directed almost all of the country's research and development resources into either this or the bomb, meaning that there was not only more incentive but also far more great minds working on the problem all at once.

Of course it wasn't all down to working together, with all the resources Germany could spare them. But neither was it all down to the competition. So I'd quite like to see an example where competition visibly sped things up in the absence of cooperation and sped things up more than cooperation in the absence of increased competition.

 p_gray99 wrote:

However, when's the last time (outside of war) that all the companies and researchers in a single country, never mind an alliance of countries, have come together to try and develop something? In the second world war, german scientists developed rockets from absolutely nothing, yes. But Hitler himself had directed almost all of the country's research and development resources into either this or the bomb, meaning that there was not only more incentive but also far more great minds working on the problem all at once.

No, you're wrong.

Germany had multiple such "wonder weapons" programs running at the same time, the V1 / V2 project, super-bomber project, several different jet propulsion projects, super-tanks projects, etc, etc. Not one of those was a national scale program like you are talking about.

 p_gray99 wrote:

Of course it wasn't all down to working together, with all the resources Germany could spare them. But neither was it all down to the competition. So I'd quite like to see an example where competition visibly sped things up in the absence of cooperation and sped things up more than cooperation in the absence of increased competition.

What are you talking about "absence of cooperation"? There is no such thing in human history! We are a social species and as such will cooperate with each other to gain advantages over other species or even other human beings.

And if you wan't examples to prove your "wishful thinking" theories, you go out and find them. I wish you the best of luck because I, for one, can't think of a single example.

PhantomViper wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
The problem with communism isn't so much to do with human nature but more to do with creating a system that lacks competition that is essential for innovation, you know what everyone should just read sebster's posts in this thread as it should have been over by then.

The assumption that competition is better for innovation than cooperation is not something I agree with.

I don't mean to offend you but I find it pretty hard to believe that you are studying politics at a university level and have these kinds of views and opinions.

It is pretty well documented that the vast majority of humanities radical advancements have come during times of war as a result of the direct competition involved especially during the modern age, from the previously mentioned advancements in nuclear energy, space exploration, aviation, communications and even modern computers, medicine and countless others!

I believe that there is no better indication of the fundamental flaws in the communist theories, that its proponents have to basically ignore or twist history, economy, politics and human psychology to arrive at an hypothetical future scenario where communism might have a chance to work... maybe.

Are you serious? First you call me a child, and now you call me a liar, and you don't mean to offend? I would suggest you work on your ability to hold a discussion without resorting to personal attacks. Seriously, just grow up.

If you'd actually read the source material I provided you would know that every technological achievement you mentioned had a measure of cooperation to it and would not have been possible otherwise. You would also know that Game Theory shows that on an individual level competition may beat cooperation, but when those cooperating form groups they far outstrip competition. But you didn't read it, so you don't know any of those things.

The problem with that argument of course, is that major examples of "cooperation" were driven by competition - specifically WWII and the cold war.

Exemples of cooperation would be vaccines, but even there, there is competition in many instances.

PhantomViper wrote:

It is pretty well documented that the vast majority of humanities radical advancements have come during times of war as a result of the direct competition involved especially during the modern age, from the previously mentioned advancements in nuclear energy, space exploration, aviation, communications and even modern computers, medicine and countless others!

No it isn't.

It's a POV put forwards by some but it's not documented at all.

One notes that all of the examples you listed were invented outside of times of war, and were then developed further towards military applications when it hit the proverbial fan.

Even then this is a relatively modern phenomenon, caused mainly one would suggest by the total war idea or model -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war

-- really requires a post industrial society to be truly effective. If one looks at the past empires like the Romans barely advanced technologically despite pretty much being at war constantly.What knowledge they did have really having been .... borrowed.... from the Greeks. Who whilst they had militaristic tendencies achieved a hell of a lot outside of warfare no ?

I think at best one can seriously claim is that war drives the advancement of practical applications of ideas and theories whilst -- owing to resource management -- it drives down the amount of theoretical work that is done, and this is often where the truly amazing leaps happen.

Furthermore now that we live in the age of the true multinational conglomerates, with the budgets and resources they can command, the advancements we're making in some fields -- bio technologies for example -- make much bigger strides in times of peace than they do in times of war.

.. well.. until Monsanto et al weaponise their goods anyway.

 reds8n wrote:

.. well.. until Monsanto et al weaponise their goods anyway.

Should read:

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

 dæl wrote:

If you'd actually read the source material I provided you would know that every technological achievement you mentioned had a measure of cooperation to it and would not have been possible otherwise. You would also know that Game Theory shows that on an individual level competition may beat cooperation, but when those cooperating form groups they far outstrip competition. But you didn't read it, so you don't know any of those things.

Cooperation is part of human nature and isn't an exclusive of communist societies, neither does it contradict the competition part. We have cooperating people in everything we do in modern society, competing against other groups of people that are also cooperating with each other. Lack of competition, on the other hand, is almost an exclusive of a communist society.

This means that the part of Game Theory that you are trying to apply here really doesn't apply! Because we aren't talking about cooperative vs noncooperative we are talking about a type of hybrid games in which groups on cooperative individuals are playing in a noncooperative way.

I'll extend to you the same challenge that p_gray99 did, please find an example of a major breakthrough for humanity that was accomplished in a non-competitive environment.