Communism

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**Frazzled**

PhantomViper wrote:
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.

Polio vaccine? Does it count as competition if everyone is racing to find a cure?

**PhantomViper**

reds8n wrote:
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.

Note that I didn't say "inventions", I said "advancements" as in "practical applications of". That some or all of the things where invented or theorized before doesn't invalidate that in 1939 people where riding horses into battle and in 1945 we had nuclear energy, jet engines and computers. You can postulate that the same could have happened outside the competitive environment of a large scale conflict but that would be pure speculation.

reds8n wrote:

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 ?

Completely agree with you, that is why I put the "especially during the modern age" in my post. Also the Greeks of the time were composed of nothing but city states that where in an almost permanent state of conflict and competition with each other, you could just as truly say that it was this competition that motivated most of their advancements.

reds8n wrote:

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.

Agree.

reds8n wrote:

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.

You've misunderstood my post in this point, my point wasn't that war advances mankind, it was that competition advances mankind and that war is the ultimate form of competition known to man (or was until recently).

But I agree with you that in the world that we live today, the competition in which modern global conglomerates engage with each other will be a much better catalyst for advancement than the sort of low-level conflict that epitomises modern warfare.

**dæl**

PhantomViper wrote:

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.

Just one?
How about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or HIV retrovirals, or the Human Genome Project?

**PhantomViper**

Frazzled wrote:

Polio vaccine? Does it count as competition if everyone is racing to find a cure?

I don't know, is a race considered a competition usually?

Seriously now, considering that both vaccines use such different methods would you say that Salk and Sabin were cooperating or competing with each other? Even in the normally cooperating environments of high-level science and medicine, the recognition and benefits that one gets from being the first to discover something is a huge motivator.

**reds8n**

Note that I didn't say "inventions", I said "advancements" as in "practical applications of". That some or all of the things where invented or theorized before doesn't invalidate that in 1939 people where riding horses into battle and in 1945 we had nuclear energy, jet engines and computers. You can postulate that the same could have happened outside the competitive environment of a large scale conflict but that would be pure speculation.

These horses you refer to would presumably be related in some form or other to the beasts that we still use in warfare today yes ?

and given

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cavalry#Cavalry_charges_and_propaganda

Apart from countless battles and skirmishes in which the Polish cavalry units fought dismounted, there were 16 confirmed[4] cavalry charges during the 1939 war. Contrary to common belief, most of them were successful.
The first and perhaps best known happened on September 1, 1939, during the Battle of Krojanty. During this action, elements of the Polish 18th Uhlan Regiment met a large group of German infantry resting in the woods near the village of Krojanty. Colonel Mastalerz decided to take the enemy by surprise and immediately ordered a cavalry charge, a tactic the Polish cavalry rarely used as their main weapon. The charge was successful and the German infantry unit was dispersed.
The same day, German war correspondents were brought to the battlefield together with two journalists from Italy. They were shown the battlefield, the corpses of Polish cavalrymen and their horses, alongside German tanks that had arrived at the field of battle only after the engagement. One of the Italian correspondents sent home an article,[5] in which he described the bravery and heroism of Polish soldiers, who charged German tanks with their sabres and lances. Other possible source of the myth is a quote from Heinz Guderian's memoirs, in which he asserted that the Pomeranian Brigade had charged on German tanks with swords and lances.[6] Although such a charge did not happen and there were no tanks used during the combat, the myth was disseminated by German propaganda during the war with a staged Polish cavalry charge shown in their 1941 reel called "Geschwader Lützow".[1] After the end of World War II the same fraud was again being disseminated by Soviet propaganda as an example of the stupidity of Polish commanders and authorities, who allegedly did not prepare their country for war and instead wasted the blood of their soldiers.[citation needed]
Even such prominent German writers as Günter Grass, later accused of anti-Polonism by Jan Józef Lipski among others, were falling victims to this Nazi deception. Grass wrote the following passage, somewhat metaphorically, in his famous novel The Tin Drum:
O insane cavalry... with what aplomb they will kiss the hand of death, as though death were a lady; but first they gather, with sunset behind them - for color and romance are their reserves - and ahead of them the German tanks, stallions from the studs of Krupps von Bohlen und Halbach, no nobler steeds in all the world. But Pan Kichot, the eccentric knight in love with death, lowers his lance with the red-and-white pennant and calls on his men to kiss the lady's hand. The storks clatter white and red on rooftops, and the sunset spits out pits like cherries, as he cries to his cavalry: "Ye noble Poles on horseback, these are no steel tanks, they are mere windmills or sheep, I summon you to kiss the lady's hand".
On 1 September 2009 Sir Simon Jenkins, writing for the The Guardian newspaper's website, characterised the notion of pitting Polish cavalry against tanks as "the most romantic and idiotic act of suicide of modern war."[7] On 21 September 2009, The Guardian was forced to publish an admission that his article "repeated a myth of the second world war, fostered by Nazi propagandists, when it said that Polish lancers turned their horses to face Hitler's panzers. There is no evidence that this occurred."[7]

I think it's just as well we haven't abandoned the idea.

.. well.. unless you're up against drunk geordies perhaps but that's a whole other thread .

We also had computers and so prior to WW II as well. What happened during that period was the research with regards to them was very specific and directed, so one can just as easily say that computers were in fact limited by WW II as some of the more modern/esoteric uses for them weren't investigated until later.

**PhantomViper**

dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:

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.

Just one?
How about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or HIV retrovirals, or the Human Genome Project?

All of those were discovered in capitalist societies and you had a huge number of competing teams vying for the honours and money associated with them, especially in the case of the HIV antiretrovirals that where developed by PRIVATE medical labs.

Please try again.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

reds8n wrote:

These horses you refer to would presumably be related in some form or other to the beasts that we still use in warfare today yes ?

The British army still rides to battle in horses?

And I'm well aware of the Nazi propaganda surrounding the "cavalry charging panzers" fable. I am a wargamer after all!

reds8n wrote:

We also had computers and so prior to WW II as well. What happened during that period was the research with regards to them was very specific and directed, so one can just as easily say that computers were in fact limited by WW II as some of the more modern/esoteric uses for them weren't investigated until later.

Citation please. And as a computer engineering graduate I'm genuinely interested in this, because my computer history class stated that the first computer even remotely worthy of the name was built in 1939.

**dæl**

PhantomViper wrote:
dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:

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.

Just one?
How about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or HIV retrovirals, or the Human Genome Project?

All of those were discovered in capitalist societies and you had a huge number of competing teams vying for the honours and money associated with them, especially in the case of the HIV antiretrovirals that where developed by PRIVATE medical labs.

Please try again.

So please tell me more about the other LHC and the other Genome Project.

You can't now move goalposts to suit yourself, you asked for a major breakthrough from a non competitive environment, not an achievement from a communist society, which as we have discussed has never existed. The irony of a no true scotsman response is hopefully not lost on you.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

PhantomViper wrote:

reds8n wrote:

We also had computers and so prior to WW II as well. What happened during that period was the research with regards to them was very specific and directed, so one can just as easily say that computers were in fact limited by WW II as some of the more modern/esoteric uses for them weren't investigated until later.

Citation please. And as a computer engineering graduate I'm genuinely interested in this, because my computer history class stated that the first computer even remotely worthy of the name was built in 1939.

Do you not know about the Turing machine? Or is that not remotely worth the name?

**PhantomViper**

dæl wrote:

So please tell me more about the other LHC and the other Genome Project.

You can't now move goalposts to suit yourself, you asked for a major breakthrough from a non competitive environment, not an achievement from a communist society, which as we have discussed has never existed. The irony of a no true scotsman response is hopefully not lost on you.

There were two concurrent human genome projects, the government funded one and the one developed by the Celera Corporation. They were run in direct competition with each other.

Again, the Higgs Boson discovery was the result of 40 years of competition between several countries, universities and individual scientists. Including the competition between the US and Europe for the location of the LHC itself.

Claiming that competition had a small or no part to play in both of those discoveries is dismissing of practically everything that led to the moment of the discovery itself.

And what I really meant was a breakthrough made by a communist country in a non-competitive environment, that most of humanity acknowledges have existed several examples of (communist countries, not breakthroughs by them) in the past century.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:

Citation please. And as a computer engineering graduate I'm genuinely interested in this, because my computer history class stated that the first computer even remotely worthy of the name was built in 1939.

Do you not know about the Turing machine? Or is that not remotely worth the name?

This might be a failure of my education or even a result of the onset of senility, but from what I remember the original Thuring machine is just an hypothetical representation and was never translated into an actual machine except much later than 1945.

**dæl**

PhantomViper wrote:
dæl wrote:

So please tell me more about the other LHC and the other Genome Project.

You can't now move goalposts to suit yourself, you asked for a major breakthrough from a non competitive environment, not an achievement from a communist society, which as we have discussed has never existed. The irony of a no true scotsman response is hopefully not lost on you.

There were two concurrent human genome projects, the government funded one and the one developed by the Celera Corporation. They were run in direct competition with each other.

Again, the Higgs Boson discovery was the result of 40 years of competition between several countries, universities and individual scientists. Including the competition between the US and Europe for the location of the LHC itself.

Claiming that competition had a small or no part to play in both of those discoveries is dismissing of practically everything that led to the moment of the discovery itself.

And what I really meant was a breakthrough made by a communist country in a non-competitive environment, that most of humanity acknowledges have existed several examples of (communist countries, not breakthroughs by them) in the past century.

So for 40 years they competed on finding the Higgs, then the countries of the world came together and funded and staffed a massive research project and discovered it...

Most of humanity may well think something, but that does not make it true. Communism is the collective ownership of resources and means of production, there has never been a case of that in the modern world, if you can provide an example of such a thing then please go ahead.

You are basically asking for a technological breakthrough from a series of countries who from their very conception were involved in war, but that breakthrough cannot include anything gained by war. Do you see the ridiculousness of such a request?

**whembly**

dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:

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.

Just one?
How about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or HIV retrovirals, or the Human Genome Project?

Uh... dude... those are done in a competitive setting.

**dæl**

whembly wrote:
dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:

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.

Just one?
How about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or HIV retrovirals, or the Human Genome Project?

Uh... dude... those are done in a competitive setting.

LHC is funded by numerous countries, you have the US and Iran working to the same end.
Retrovirals research has seen vast amounts of shared data.
HGP worked on the Bemuda Principles.

Doesn't seem that competitive to me.

**whembly**

dæl wrote:
whembly wrote:
dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:

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.

Just one?
How about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, or HIV retrovirals, or the Human Genome Project?

Uh... dude... those are done in a competitive setting.

LHC is funded by numerous countries, you have the US and Iran working to the same end.
Retrovirals research has seen vast amounts of shared data.
HGP worked on the Bemuda Principles.

Doesn't seem that competitive to me.

Um... are you familiar with the "competition" for federal grants? Go ask any university researchers...

**PhantomViper**

dæl wrote:

LHC is funded by numerous countries, you have the US and Iran working to the same end.
Retrovirals research has seen vast amounts of shared data.
HGP worked on the Bemuda Principles.

Doesn't seem that competitive to me.

Just because the funding was a cooperative venture doesn't mean that anything else was (apart from the work inside the scientific teams that is).

Every one of the scientists involved in those discoveries will have had to compete for the job with other scientists.
Every manager in the project will have had to compete for extra-funding with other similar projects.
Every manufacturer of the machines that actually made the discovery possible will have been in direct competition for the contracts.

Even the funding that each country contributes to the project is in direct competition with other similar projects in their respective countries.

**dæl**

PhantomViper wrote:
dæl wrote:

LHC is funded by numerous countries, you have the US and Iran working to the same end.
Retrovirals research has seen vast amounts of shared data.
HGP worked on the Bemuda Principles.

Doesn't seem that competitive to me.

Just because the funding was a cooperative venture doesn't mean that anything else was (apart from the work inside the scientific teams that is).

Every one of the scientists involved in those discoveries will have had to compete for the job with other scientists.
Every manager in the project will have had to compete for extra-funding with other similar projects.
Every manufacturer of the machines that actually made the discovery possible will have been in direct competition for the contracts.

Even the funding that each country contributes to the project is in direct competition with other similar projects in their respective countries.

So you refuse to accept cooperative ventures if there is any form of competition anywhere involved. Could you name a single achievement that was made without cooperation? I'm guessing not.

**whembly**

dæl wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:
dæl wrote:

LHC is funded by numerous countries, you have the US and Iran working to the same end.
Retrovirals research has seen vast amounts of shared data.
HGP worked on the Bemuda Principles.

Doesn't seem that competitive to me.

Just because the funding was a cooperative venture doesn't mean that anything else was (apart from the work inside the scientific teams that is).

Every one of the scientists involved in those discoveries will have had to compete for the job with other scientists.
Every manager in the project will have had to compete for extra-funding with other similar projects.
Every manufacturer of the machines that actually made the discovery possible will have been in direct competition for the contracts.

Even the funding that each country contributes to the project is in direct competition with other similar projects in their respective countries.

So you refuse to accept cooperative ventures if there is any form of competition anywhere involved. Could you name a single achievement that was made without cooperation? I'm guessing not.

Dael... cooperation is NOT communism.

**reds8n**

The British army still rides to battle in horses?

Sort of.

.. I also assume you mean on horses here too

... I don't think the alternative is something we need dwell on.

Can be lonely on the frontlines I gather though.

In Afghanistan ( and Iraq ? ) various countries special forces have made good use of horses on occasion.

Obviously this is rare but goes to show how one should never be too quick to forget or throw away the past.

**p_gray99**

The reason it's hard to find a success that hasn't had any competition to do with it is that there haven't been many (or any that I know of) well-funded attempts to create new technology without any competition. So that means that out of 0 attempts to create new technology in such circumstances, 0 have succeeded, giving a 100% success rate.

**dæl**

whembly wrote:

Dael... cooperation is NOT communism.

I am well aware of that. A point was raised on the last page or so that it is universally accepted that competition is better for human achievement than cooperation. I showed that it is not universally accepted by referencing the work of Harvard evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak, and the discussion on whether cooperation or competition is better for advancement went from there.

**PhantomViper**

dæl wrote:
whembly wrote:

Dael... cooperation is NOT communism.

I am well aware of that. A point was raised on the last page or so that it is universally accepted that competition is better for human achievement than cooperation. I showed that it is not universally accepted by referencing the work of Harvard evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak, and the discussion on whether cooperation or competition is better for advancement went from there.

No, you are the only one trying to make that point, everyone else is just arguing that cooperation with competition (capitalist model) is better than just cooperation (communist model).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

reds8n wrote:

.. I also assume you mean on horses here too ... I don't think the alternative is something we need dwell on.

Yes, ON, ON horses! Damn auto-correct, yes, that is what it was, auto-correct!

**reds8n**

I thought we'd discovered why a Portuguese cavalry charge was a sight to be feared !

.. for the enemy horses anyway !

**dæl**

No, you are the only one trying to make that point, everyone else is just arguing that cooperation with competition (capitalist model) is better than just cooperation (communist model).

Really?

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

The claim that competition is essential for innovation is just that, a claim. My issue is that it is often taken as fact, when it is still a debated subject.

Also the capitalist model has us all as independent agents competing, there is no room for cooperation within the ideological capitalism, only exploitation. Of course our implementation of capitalism does allow it, by bringing in aspects of socialist ideology.

**strybjorn Grimskull**

Frazzled wrote:
strybjorn Grimskull wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
So again, in the real world, you're expressing the view that communism can't exist. Therefore, as a model its, as Mr. Rogers would say, a mountain sized pile of unworkable gak and pee.

So far in the real world, however as i have already posted if people tried it would be possible.

Communism is not impossible, just highly fragile, it needs 100% dedication.

2 Things

1.I'm not trying to start a revolution here, it is just my humble opinion

2.HURRAY its my 200th post.

1. Congrats on 200th post.
2. If it requires 100% dedication, then as a model its horrifically flawed and unworkable outside of Heaven/Paradise/The Great Kennel and isn't actually worthy of discussion outside of those contexts.

1.Thank you

2.Raising children takes 100% dedication, does that mean that being a parent is horrifically flawed and unworkable.

**whembly**

strybjorn Grimskull wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
strybjorn Grimskull wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
So again, in the real world, you're expressing the view that communism can't exist. Therefore, as a model its, as Mr. Rogers would say, a mountain sized pile of unworkable gak and pee.

So far in the real world, however as i have already posted if people tried it would be possible.

Communism is not impossible, just highly fragile, it needs 100% dedication.

2 Things

1.I'm not trying to start a revolution here, it is just my humble opinion

2.HURRAY its my 200th post.

1. Congrats on 200th post.
2. If it requires 100% dedication, then as a model its horrifically flawed and unworkable outside of Heaven/Paradise/The Great Kennel and isn't actually worthy of discussion outside of those contexts.

1.Thank you

2.Raising children takes 100% dedication, does that mean that being a parent is horrifically flawed and unworkable.

1. 'grats.

2. Horrifically flaw?? To a certain degree... that's accurate. "Unworkable"? No... because there's no such thing as a "perfect utopian" parent.

**p_gray99**

And in a similar way, it might easily be impossible to have an entirely flawless system, but we can make the vast, vast majority of communism work without the tiny flaws causing the whole thing to fail.

**PhantomViper**

dæl wrote:

Also the capitalist model has us all as independent agents competing, there is no room for cooperation within the ideological capitalism, only exploitation. Of course our implementation of capitalism does allow it, by bringing in aspects of socialist ideology.

Agreed, that's why I said that pure Capitalism is just as utopian as pure Communism.

But I will argue to my dying breath that our implementation of Capitalism is a better system for the real world than any possible implementation of Communism.

**Frazzled**

strybjorn Grimskull wrote:

2.Raising children takes 100% dedication, does that mean that being a parent is horrifically flawed and unworkable.

Yes!!! Best to ship them off to the coal mine when they are 8.

**p_gray99**

Frazzled wrote:
strybjorn Grimskull wrote:

2.Raising children takes 100% dedication, does that mean that being a parent is horrifically flawed and unworkable.

Yes!!! Best to ship them off to the coal mine when they are 8.

8? That's far too old! They can probably fend for themselves when they're 3, and we certainly won't know until we try it!

**Frazzled**

Eight is optimum. They are big enough to pull the small coal cars but not too big to get in the way and require a full day's food.

**dæl**

PhantomViper wrote:
dæl wrote:

Also the capitalist model has us all as independent agents competing, there is no room for cooperation within the ideological capitalism, only exploitation. Of course our implementation of capitalism does allow it, by bringing in aspects of socialist ideology.

Agreed, that's why I said that pure Capitalism is just as utopian as pure Communism.

But I will argue to my dying breath that our implementation of Capitalism is a better system for the real world than any possible implementation of Communism.

And I shall argue that the system implemented has less to do with the success of a society than how it is adulterated and the benevolence of those in charge. Any system with centralised control, be it on the far right or the far left, has far more capacity for corruption than moderate, centralist positions like we have. And while I agree with Plato in that the only people we should give power to are those who don't want it, I still think our best chance of implementing communism, or any other form of utopia, is by handing power to vastly intellectually superior AIs.

Do you really think that our system is better than any possible communist system? Even if the communist system worked and meant not a single child ever died of hunger again? I am an idealist in that I think certain ideals are what we should aim for, but if a differing ideology actually worked perfectly then I would happily take that for the good of everyone.

**poda_t**

p_gray99 wrote:
And in a similar way, it might easily be impossible to have an entirely flawless system, but we can make the vast, vast majority of communism work without the tiny flaws causing the whole thing to fail.

your tiny flaw is the individual human will. The human will is not founded in reason, but in unreason. Why should one human being believe himself the equal of another when the other lacks a penis, has a mental disorder, scores well below average on every exam, speaks with an accent, has a different skin color, wears a different hat than you do, or has an inferior preference for cats instead of Dachshunds? Communism makes a lovely argument, but opposes millennia of history and failure. Sure, "communism" does and has worked on small scales where the entire community hauls together to survive, where each member knows the other by first name, but the moment you make a permanent settlement, is the moment you establish the definition of property, of what's mine and what isn't. The sheer quantity of energy required to eliminate needs and make wants meaningless is so far off as to be ridiculous, and what we are left with is, at best, to provide a socialist structure where the needs of minimum daily calorie intake, a roof, running water and enough heat so you don't freeze to death in the winter are met. Understand, communism can't be seen as a working structure when a supposedly set of christian nations are filled with people that refute science and reason, opt for a ridiculous lies about the history and the origin of the world, use that to inform their science, while at the same time being as devout as they are on Sundays proceed to piss on the homeless and the needy every day of the year except Christmas and Thanksgiving. Oh but wait, some foreign country was just hit with X catastrophe. Let's continue pissing on our own citizens, cut the support they are getting, and instead send aid to countries that have made it clear they don't want our assistance, all the while everything we send over to those countries inevitably ends up in the hands of drug-funded warlords..........